[markomalley]

There is a very good chance you’ll be disappointed.

…

The America we know will only continue through default (either outright or through inflation) of our debts and living within our means going forward.

Let me explain to you what I actually expect (which is distinct from what I demand).

• I expect entitlement spending to increase (by entitlement, I do not include Social Security pensions or military/civil service retirements). To pay for those increased entitlements, I expect the following:
  • I expect my 401(k) will be confiscated within the next 2-3 years.
  • I expect my military retirement will be eliminated within the next 4-5 years.
  • I expect social security will stop outright within the next 10 years.
  • I expect my marginal tax bracket to go to 75%...and all deductions/exemptions eliminated. Sometime...in the next 10 years.
• I expect that those measures will not keep up with the lucre of the entitled and the desire of Congress (of either party) to maintain power.
• Therefore, I expect the dollar to utterly collapse sometime within the next 10 years.
• This collapse will cause rioting in the streets when entitlements won't buy the booze and the drugs for the masses. This will result in the deployment of the military to the streets to suppress the insurrection.
• This collapse will also trigger the total socialization of all private commercial property and interests (other than one's own personal household property...followed by another round of huge entitlements to placate the masses.
• That, in turn, will result in an inability, regardless of how much money is printed, to service the debt.
• And that, in turn, will trigger a global war which will send the civilized world back into the dark ages (if we're lucky).

Living within our means? That won't happen. Ever. We passed that tipping point long, long ago.

Therefore, I'm not going to voluntarily give mine up (which, whether the USG can afford it or not, I earned), until those lackeys that didn't earn a bit are forced to give theirs up first.

And, all fantasizing aside, you know that the politicians who give people their free (or heavily subsidized) housing, their food stamps / EBT cards, their welfare, their out-of-wedlock parent cash, the Michelle Obama approved arugula school lunches, the subsidized before and after school care, the crony capitalist subsidies to foolish business ventures, etc., aren't going to make those people give up their freebies. You know politicians from either party will, in no way, even dream of asking them to give that up.

Our means do not include multi-million dollar pension plans for government employees. How could it?

This statement is fantasy. If I am asked to give up my military pension or if a civil servant is asked to give up his pension, it's not like it is going to be used constructively. The govies will just see that and say that this is extra money that we can use to buy influence. We can use this to get more people dependent on government handouts. We can use this to pay off our cronies with government grants. "It's more money that we have to do the work of the American people" ((barf))

It isn't going to be saved...it isn't going to pay down the debt...it will be used to further expand the government.

And, seeing the performance of most of the so-called Tea Party congressweenies, electing new faces to Congress (or to the WH) won't change anything. They'll just be seduced like most of the last batch.

It's like I said in the beginning: if you get the government down to Article 1 Section 8 (as amended) size, if you re-do the civil service and acquisition systems so they actually are effective, if after all that...you're unable to pay my retirement, then we can talk. Until that time, there's nothing to talk about.

[RFEngineer]

They can take everything from everyone simply by letting inflation work it’s magic, and then diverting blame.

At some point we will be forced to live within our means - we can do so with a privatized means of production intact (by stopping the spending) which is not likely to happen, or we can just let inflation devastate everything and every one with war and/or social upheaval as you described being a likely result.

One requires political will, the other one a bottomless pit of moral depravity.

The former is sadly missing, and the depths of the latter have not been tested to such an extent ever before.

Nobody is telling you not to take your check. Like you said, with the elegance of a true conservative who gets a check from the government, you won’t give yours up: “...until those lackeys that didn’t earn a bit are forced to give theirs up first. “

From the perspective of the private sector, you are also one of those lackeys of which you speak, but that’s neither here nor there.