The true believer liberal left inhabits more than just the City of Madison. Based on the presidential election results, almost every township in Dane County believes enough of the Democrat message to vote blue. Much of the blogging from the fervent youth in the heart of the city has aspects of a “challenge all authority idealism” I myself recall from the days of Nixon and Watergate. What continues to surprise and mystify me, however, are educated middle age adults who truly believe things like Social Security will save me.
What I find interesting is not the common place hair splitting over the appropriate use of the word “crisis” rather than the word “problem”. Nor is it the infinite speculation over the implications of potential numerical projections. I have no real respect for either the excessive use of emotional words or for calculation based fortune telling. The interesting aspect of the reference above is the confession that it was only in his mid-thirties the financial aspects of the end of his life become a serious concern.
He writes: “At one point, I cashed out what retirement savings I had in an account, and just didn’t re-invest it. Back to square one.” What a brilliant way to capture the essence of the problem. All the time he was working he was paying Social Security taxes and paying into private account. Because he owned the assets in the private account, he had the right to take those assets, convert them to cash and spend it, because it was his own money. He laments that the assets were not re-invested, by which I assume he means at least in US savings bonds or an FDIC insured interest bearing bank account.
Of course the money he earned and paid to the government as Social Security taxes is long gone. If he dies before becoming Social Security eligible there is nothing left of his youthful labor except the comfort his dollars provided the beneficial recipients, either an elderly or disable person, or perhaps a defense contractor. It’s hard to track cash flow in government accounting because anyone paying attention knows that social security tax revenue is “converted” into government bonds, and the cash can go anywhere.
I understand and agree that as individuals we have an obligation to help others. I believe, however, that a person’s debt to society needs to be both quantifiable and limited. In other words, the government should not be allowed to place a debt on an individual that can not be satisfied. As a youth our writer worked at paying his debt to society which is good, however, the indiscretion of youth caused him to neglect his other obligation not to become to great a burden upon others. Perhaps this Social Security debate needs to focus on both aspects of this issue: How much do I owe to others and how much can I ask of others in return?
What I find interesting is not the common place hair splitting over the appropriate use of the word “crisis” rather than the word “problem”. Nor is it the infinite speculation over the implications of potential numerical projections. I have no real respect for either the excessive use of emotional words or for calculation based fortune telling. The interesting aspect of the reference above is the confession that it was only in his mid-thirties the financial aspects of the end of his life become a serious concern.
He writes: “At one point, I cashed out what retirement savings I had in an account, and just didn’t re-invest it. Back to square one.” What a brilliant way to capture the essence of the problem. All the time he was working he was paying Social Security taxes and paying into private account. Because he owned the assets in the private account, he had the right to take those assets, convert them to cash and spend it, because it was his own money. He laments that the assets were not re-invested, by which I assume he means at least in US savings bonds or an FDIC insured interest bearing bank account.
Of course the money he earned and paid to the government as Social Security taxes is long gone. If he dies before becoming Social Security eligible there is nothing left of his youthful labor except the comfort his dollars provided the beneficial recipients, either an elderly or disable person, or perhaps a defense contractor. It’s hard to track cash flow in government accounting because anyone paying attention knows that social security tax revenue is “converted” into government bonds, and the cash can go anywhere.
I understand and agree that as individuals we have an obligation to help others. I believe, however, that a person’s debt to society needs to be both quantifiable and limited. In other words, the government should not be allowed to place a debt on an individual that can not be satisfied. As a youth our writer worked at paying his debt to society which is good, however, the indiscretion of youth caused him to neglect his other obligation not to become to great a burden upon others. Perhaps this Social Security debate needs to focus on both aspects of this issue: How much do I owe to others and how much can I ask of others in return?
