“I paid into it since 1960...Nd it was a good idea. ...”
I’m assuming the ‘Nd’ in your statement means ‘No Doubt’, but SS was never a ‘good idea’.
The premise that accepting money from an organization that forcefully stole that money from other people is never a good idea.
Basically SS is the gov’t pointing a gun to your head saying “we’re stealing your money today to give to others now, but, at some time in the future we will stop doing so and send you money we stole from other people.”.
I see accepting SS money as receiving stolen goods.
I wish the whole SS system would collapse (along with many other unconstitutional other programs) so I may be left along to take care of myself when and if I ever live long enough to “retire”.
Imagine the retirement account you would have today if ever penny you paid into SS, had been put into some type of investment.
A similar rhetorical statement was recently on a Yahoo message board. While I like the idea in general, I think a couple of things might happen as a result.
One, some idiots would still piss the extra away, or they would spend it on other necessities and have nothing to show for it upon retirement age.
Two, some people would remain unemployed or underemployed, and never contribute to an investment or a savings' plan.
In the first two scenarios, those people might reach retirement age, and have zero savings, and few ways to earn a living without an SS program. I suppose they could still qualify for welfare or other benefits.
In the remaining scenario, I wonder what would happen to the stock market if millions of new investors began putting money into it. You would think an influx of stock-buying would be good for the markets, and share prices would rise. However, wouldn't that have the potential to create over-valued stocks? Companies don't have unlimited growth options; there's an intrinsic value to a share of stock, and once that's reached, anything more is purely speculative.