If you Google Galveston county and Social Security, you find a Texas county that dropped out of SS in the '70's to save their own retirement and now clerks and garbage men drive diesel pusher motor homes around the country between cruises. On SS they would have gotten about $1500 a month whether they needed it or not.
The general fund is just a term that describes the “pot” of money that congress draws from. Even borrowed money can be considered to be part of the general fund. But also tax revenue goes into it.
Yes I know, obviously, that congress is borrowing 1.9 trillion a year to keep that fund solvent. As well as the fact they have been borrowing from(robbing) social security for years to keep the general fund solvent. I am not saying that social security has not been a pyramid scheme. It has as you say been paying out more to individuals than they paid in. But the way that was accomplished was by charging more from people who are currently paying in, but not yet collecting SS. Until the last year or so it has been self sustaining and more. Otherwise their would have been nothing to rob. At the end of this scheme of course is the fact that the people that paid in the most will never get to collect a dime unless as you say.. The rate paid out is drastically reduced. Making this one of the most unfair schemes of all times. Those who paid in the most will collect little or nothing at all.
You know that the original mandate of the federal reserve was to maintain inflation at zero percent. If they had done that instead of playing games to artificially spike the economy and also to play banker bailout- Then Social security could have paid enough. If you understand what I am saying then you will understand that if the Federal reserve had done its job(and followed its mandate) then a loaf of bread would still cost 5 cents. And the average person would still earn less than 100 dollars a week. But all savings would maintain purchasing power through the ages. That is the way it should be. And SS would have worked under those terms if it had not been robbed. And people who saved money would never lose the value of the money they worked hard to save. That coupled with living within our means and not borrowing money would have meant that our economy would have flowed pretty evenly with only minor ups and downs(based on over/under production).