Today, Alan Greenspan spoke about the fraudulent "retirement" scheme known as Social Security. Social Insecurity is nothing but a government-operated ponzi scheme. A bubble built on false promises. Like Enron, except that contributions are involuntary. Plain and simple. The system adds no value, so the benefits of people withdrawing from the system are paid for by the people paying into the system. The amount that you cough up for it is conveniently obscured by the fact that 50% of the money comes from your employer. The system works when the payers vastly outnumber the payees and the pyramind is growing. And just like every other pyramid, the system collapses when the trend reverses. That's due to happen in a decade or two.
One day, politicians are going to have to stop pussyfooting around this issue and deal with it. This is going to become a center stage issue in American politics, like Iraq is today. I don't know if it will be five years from now, ten, or twenty, but it will happen. Whatever happens, it's not going to be pretty. Ultimately, I expect the country to fall into two camps: those who want to reform or destroy the program altogether, and those who want to subsidize the program with federal income taxes to keep it intact. Politicians will have to start taking sides. Ultimately, I expect the "subsidize the program with taxes" side to win for one reason -- the payees vote at a much greater rate than the payers. Whatever happens, the solution is going to be very ugly and unfair for somebody.
Just once, I wish that a politician would communicate this issue to young people. The only politicians who ever court the young vote are Left Wing moonbats like Jerry Brown and Howard Dean. Politicians only visit college campuses to preach about saving the rainforest, socialized medicine, and putting dirty oil companies out of business. I'd like to see a politician visit a college campus and tell the students how badly they are getting cornholed by Social Insecurity instead.
Greenspan warns of abrupt and painful choices unless baby boomer pension benefits are trimmed
JACKSON, Wyo. - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday that the country will face ``abrupt and painful'' choices if Congress does not move quickly to trim the Social Security and Medicare benefits that have been promised to the baby boom generation.
Returning to a politically explosive issue that he has addressed a number of times this year, Greenspan said that it was wrong for the government to hold out the promise of more retirement benefits than it is capable of providing.
He said this issue was particularly critical given the impending retirement of 77 million baby boomers born in the two decades after World War II.
``As a nation, we owe it to our retirees to promise only the benefits that can be delivered,'' Greenspan said in opening remarks to a two-day conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City on the challenges posed by aging populations.
``If we have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver, as I fear we may have, we must recalibrate our public programs so that pending retirees have time to adjust through other channels,'' Greenspan said. ``If we delay, the adjustments could be abrupt and painful.''
Greenspan, as he has done previously, suggested that possible changes would be raising the retirement age to receive full Social Security benefits, which currently is gradually increasing from 65 to 67.
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