« A succinct summary of our situation

I’ve got to avoid Ed Zitron in the morning

I don’t think I can take much more of this. As someone on the edge of retirement, I have to hear the Republicans scheming to kill social security, which is bad enough, but here’s Ed Zitron predicting the complete obliteration of retirement funds thanks to the imminent detonation of the AI bubble.

Unfortunately, it all makes sense. Our economy seems to be dedicated to pumping up the fortunes of about a dozen people, and I’m not one of them.

« A succinct summary of our situation

Comments

  1. raven says

    As someone on the edge of retirement, I have to hear the Republicans scheming to kill social security, which is bad enough,…

    That this is a really bad idea is obvious.

    .1. Social Security and Medicare are self funding programs.
    They have zero to do with our annual deficits or our National Debt.

    ,2, Social Security will never run out of money!!!
    What will happen in the worst case is that in 2032, payouts will exceed paid in + surplus.
    This means that benefits will have to be reduced to 79% of the current amounts.

    .3. This is a disaster but 79% is a whole lot better than 0%.

    .4. That this will happen has been known for decades. It is simple math.
    There are simple and obvious ways to fix this. Neither the GOP or the Democrats have had the courage and abilities to fix this.

    .5. The Republicans have been trying to kill Social Security since Roosevelt introduced it in 1936. For no real reason except that it helps all US residents and they are horrible people.
    Social Security has been a very successful program and is wildly popular and a part of life for almost all Americans.

  2. raven says

    You can live on just Social Security as a retirement income.
    It’s not easy and you are not going to have a high standard of living most of the time but it is possible.

    I volunteer with a program for low income seniors and disabled.
    They are all on Social Security.
    They are at least housed in reasonable conditions. None of them have cars though because they can’t afford them.
    Some of them also get Food Stamps (SNAP).

    Before they got on Social Security, some of them were homeless.

    For these people, cuts in Social Security benefits will be a disaster.

    PS: Social Security is often called an “entitlement”.
    This isn’t accurate.
    It is a pension plan. Those payouts are your money, that you paid in.

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