A truly disturbing opinion piece by Bill Frezza over at Real Clear Politics. The boomers are eating their young.
My 26 year old son got the most extraordinary letter from the Social Security Administration last week. In plain English it admitted that the system was a Ponzi scheme destined for bankruptcy more than a decade before he reaches retirement age. It warned that if he is to have any hope of retiring he’d better start saving on his own. Anyone who wasn’t personally hypnotized by FDR knows this to be true. Yet I was still surprised that such a frank government confession didn’t make national news.
The two-page pamphlet entitled “What young workers should know about Social Security and saving” reminds us that 50 million, or one in six, Americans will collect more than $614 Billion dollars in Social Security benefits this year. It informs young people that the Security Taxes they now pay go into a “Trust Fund” that is used to pay current beneficiaries. Paying off early investors with funds taken from later investors is precisely how Wikipedia defines a Ponzi scheme. The pamphlet advises that the Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that the “Trust Fund” will be depleted before my son’s 54th birthday. Because people are living longer and the birth rate is low, it goes on, taxes paid by workers in the future will not be enough to pay the benefits promised in his personalized retirement account statement enclosed with the pamphlet. Imagine what hell would break loose if Schwab or Fidelity Investments enclosed a confession like this when they mailed investors their 401(k) statements.
Add on the incredibly generous pension benefits that most government employees get that allow them to retire in their 50s and pretty soon we’re talking serious money. The younger workers suffer – and will suffer even more under health care “reform” where they will be forced to subsidize the boomer’s fun retirements.
But let’s expand on Frezza’s thoughts and reflect on the devil’s bargain the boomers are making. The younger workers will, inevitably, be the very bureaucrats who decide what health care the older people get.
So the younger ones, enslaved by the older ones, will have little incentive to prolong the happy, well-funded lives of the older cannibal class.
Sleep on that thought. Sweet dreams.
ObamaCare – wrong for everyone.
Some feeble minded thoughts: 1)Gaius’ speculation on the behavior of future bureaucrats is interesting, but I think said bureaucrats will do the bidding of the elected pols. Who will those politicians pander to, workers or retirees? 2)Has anyone noticed there is to be no COLA increase for Social Security recipients this year, but retirees will have to spend more for medicare premiums? If this was happening under Chimpy Bush I suspect it would be front page news for weeks, but I haven’t seen a word reported in the MSM. It will be interesting to see how that dynamic will affect the 2010 election. 3)GOP,in opposing Obamacare are appearing to support the status quo in Medicare when they oppose the $500 billion in medicare cuts the dems are advocating. This stand makes me very uneasy. How can the repubs propose any type of entitlement reform if they are elected on the perception of preserving the status quo? 4) I don’t know how this will be fixed, but if Gaius’ prognostication comes to pass, there will likely be some serious social upheaval.
A culture which encourages adults to abort their children encourages children to euthanize adults.
Feminism- the original death panel.
Another Obama Administration attempt to promote generational conflict. The public schools and colleges have been full of such insinuations, initially subtle but now increasingly overt.
Children and young adults are being indoctrinated to see older Americans as an obstacle to collectivist initiatives, Global Whoring, One World government, Multiculturalism, and Socialism. Senior Citizens are the demographic most resistant to the goals the Left seeks to advance.
It’s no accident that Medicare has been targeted for destruction, a cut of nearly 600 billion, it’s an expensive entitlement and it goes to keep a very large block of voters alive who support American traditional values.
You’ll know the Left is on the march when AmeriCorps morphs into The Obama Youth.
Not to argue with your basic premise, but I work for the federal government and their pension plan is not generous enough to retire at 50. Military retirement is the same way. If you “retire,” you need another job immediately in order to simply make ends meet.
I can’t speak to the state pensions.
OT: Drudge has a link to the LA Times showing Palin polling within one point of the 0. Amazing, considering how each has been treated.
Excellent analysis from Gaius and every poster above.
At 59 years old, I’m glad I learned investing in my 20′s, and have lived below my means.
What if the 20 and 30 somethings decide not to work (as in going Galt)? The system collapses even faster. Will we return to family (intergenerational) values or will we all live in the gray sadness of the Soviet experience?