Really?
If you pay into an insurance policy for many years (annuities) and then start drawing fixed income from that policy,,,that’s socialist, you say?
Social Security is darn near communist. You are not paying into your own retirement. You are paying benefits to the generation that came before you and of course the cripples in your own generation. the younger generation that you expect to pay your "benefits" weren't party to that agreement and now know the system will be broke when it is their turn. When they get numerous enough compared to us boomers (we're dying out) they will lean on the politicians to cut you off. You don't have an account you paid into.
By being an American you are a party to that agreement.
Folks have been talking for a long time about “the system being broke by,,,”.
SS ain’t going away.
And by the way, most insurance devices and instruments operate on the pool method of incoming versus outgoing capital.
I figure that SS may be headed for big changes too.
Like Hastings, it seems obvious to me that politicians will stop using all that money to court the elder generation. It seems that having groomed the younger generations, their interest in the older and more worldly citizens will fade.
The idea of reducing or removing SS benefits from anyone with private retirement funds must be on their minds. As well as upping/rearranging age brackets/benefits, etc. They already skip COL updates, etc.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to make it illegal to not be in some sort of private retirement plan. Remember the "crime" of not buying health care? And the current rumors of taxing unrealized gains in retirement accounts?
The only real clout the SS generations have left is tied to the needs and expectations of the following generations. Simply reduce those needs & expectations and reducing SS can follow with less resistance. It should be very easy to sell "why should I pay for them?" to a couple of generations of the entitled, right?
There was a time when promising SS & health care was a good political strategy. But those older generation votes seem to be less valuable currency all the time.
And don't forget how many taxpayer dollars are going to be used to support suddenly surging resource demands, and how little a dollar is suddenly worth.
It's gotta come from somewhere. Pretty sure stripping SS benefits will be looked at favorably, probably with grandfathering the current retirees but stripping benefits from future retirees.
