Retirement? hardly...
The Guardian, a British news source, has released an interesting article on our retirement system. The article staes that Social Security will be tapped out in 2040, one year sooner than predicted, and Medicare much sooner.
Politicians, the republican politicians mostly, have assed up this system. I know president Kennedy was the firstto make the social security surplus a presidential "loan office", but over the years, due to fiscal irresponsibility, politicians have allowed this to happen. I don't have a huge problem with the fact that it has happened, but more in the fact that noone is doing anything to fix it, or change spending habits. Noone could live the way the U.S. government is living. No household budget could stand it. That my friend is where the problem is. The fact that the government is trying to be a "yuppie", and spend like they will get the money tomorrow, rather than budget what they already have.
Another problem I have is, the money we are forced to pay into Social Security and Medicare will never be refunded to us. The thousands of dollars that each individual has to pay annuall, heck, over a lifetime, will be lost to poor management, innadequate legislation and even ignorant laws. The problem, as I see it, is that the system was innacted by a Democratic even Liberal President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then over time the opposing party chips away at prior acheivments, if you want to call it that, of the prior sitting administration. In essence you have a catfight between opposing parties, and the only looser is the general public. For years the Republican's have been preaching privitized retirement, but have never stated what will happen to all of the lost money. A 401K, 403B or even a Roth IRA is privatized retirement.
The purpose of Social Security is to help the economy when times get tough, and since times haven't been tough for over 60 years, not many people remember what it is like to truly be broke. This goes for the politicians as well. During the great depression of the 30's times were truly tough, and many had nothing, literally millions lost their homes, could not feed their families, a great depression in every sense of the word. So Roosevelt created and enacted the WPA as well as Social security, The WPA gave people work, and the Social Security forced people to save, because lets face it, American's aren't good savers even when we do have money. The problem came in the 60's when a generation that hadn't relly known hard times came up and saw the excess in the SS fund, and decided it would be wise to borrow against that. Heck it wouldn't even show up in the budget, almost like free money. Then as administrations came and went this practice was slowly perverted and finally, it was out of hand, and we now have too few dollars to provide the coverage it was intended for.
Had the fund been left alone, everything would be fine, but politicians seem to make legislation and rules for the now, not the future. Not only do they seem to ignore the consequences, they also don't seem to anticipate a worst case scenario to plan for.
The average american has less than 20,000 dollars saved for retirement. This is not a good sign, especially since we are supposedly one of the richest nations in the world. What is wrong with this picture?
Politicians, the republican politicians mostly, have assed up this system. I know president Kennedy was the firstto make the social security surplus a presidential "loan office", but over the years, due to fiscal irresponsibility, politicians have allowed this to happen. I don't have a huge problem with the fact that it has happened, but more in the fact that noone is doing anything to fix it, or change spending habits. Noone could live the way the U.S. government is living. No household budget could stand it. That my friend is where the problem is. The fact that the government is trying to be a "yuppie", and spend like they will get the money tomorrow, rather than budget what they already have.
Another problem I have is, the money we are forced to pay into Social Security and Medicare will never be refunded to us. The thousands of dollars that each individual has to pay annuall, heck, over a lifetime, will be lost to poor management, innadequate legislation and even ignorant laws. The problem, as I see it, is that the system was innacted by a Democratic even Liberal President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then over time the opposing party chips away at prior acheivments, if you want to call it that, of the prior sitting administration. In essence you have a catfight between opposing parties, and the only looser is the general public. For years the Republican's have been preaching privitized retirement, but have never stated what will happen to all of the lost money. A 401K, 403B or even a Roth IRA is privatized retirement.
The purpose of Social Security is to help the economy when times get tough, and since times haven't been tough for over 60 years, not many people remember what it is like to truly be broke. This goes for the politicians as well. During the great depression of the 30's times were truly tough, and many had nothing, literally millions lost their homes, could not feed their families, a great depression in every sense of the word. So Roosevelt created and enacted the WPA as well as Social security, The WPA gave people work, and the Social Security forced people to save, because lets face it, American's aren't good savers even when we do have money. The problem came in the 60's when a generation that hadn't relly known hard times came up and saw the excess in the SS fund, and decided it would be wise to borrow against that. Heck it wouldn't even show up in the budget, almost like free money. Then as administrations came and went this practice was slowly perverted and finally, it was out of hand, and we now have too few dollars to provide the coverage it was intended for.
Had the fund been left alone, everything would be fine, but politicians seem to make legislation and rules for the now, not the future. Not only do they seem to ignore the consequences, they also don't seem to anticipate a worst case scenario to plan for.
The average american has less than 20,000 dollars saved for retirement. This is not a good sign, especially since we are supposedly one of the richest nations in the world. What is wrong with this picture?
posted by Snappy | 5/03/2006 10:07:00 AM
2 Comments:
Snappy,
America has one major problem. That being is that the majority of people that are given power or wealth or both, lose perspective. We have talked about this even within our own work environment. Once you achieve a certain way of life, it is hard to relate to those that do not have what you have. Even as poor as I am, I would have a hard time relating to someone living on the street. Albeit, at times I feel like I may get a crash course.
Our government officials, especially the ones in higher offices often come from wealthy or privileged backgrounds. Not to say all have achieved their wealth by the wrong means. People that have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps can not be condemned at all. Except, when they forget how hard it is when your down.
Our present elected officials in the White House, from the top down, are some of the ones that disturb me most. They have no realistic view of what being poor or even middle class is. Miss Rice may come be the closest of knowing what middle class is, but she seems to have forgotten that too.
When you have no grasp on reality, you can not be expected to spend other peoples hard earned cash with any worries of paying it back. For that matter we may as well have the Hilton sisters in the White House.
I saw Bill Gates on TV the other night. He is the richest man in the world. Worth over 50 billion dollars. He and is wife has given like 23 billion dollars to all sorts of medical reasearch and helping third world countries. It was amazing watching him. He still had his crappy haircut. But what impressed me was that he had such a positive outlook on humanity. Here is a man that could purchase a third world country. He could pay off our national debt in just a few years of his earnings, yet he still works daily and he is steadfast in looking for answers to medical and social issues. They made a comment about him running for president. I know he and Jimmy Carter have done some work together. I think I could vote for this guy.
As far as social security. They should have changed the name years ago to "Pork r Us". Or "Screw U Americans". American needs a revolution, and I don't mean going out and buying a new Chevy.
Ok Snappy,
I just read back over my last comment. It is late, I'm tired and my comment made very little sense. My grammar is horrible. I can't believe how many words I misspelled. Please don't let anyone know who I am. This is embarrassing.
Sandlapper
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