[dragnet2]

Well, I'm just telling you, most Americans through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, up to probably the late 80s, or 90s never even thought about SS or gave it little thought.. It was simply taken out of our checks and that was about it...

If Americans would have been thinking 40 years ago, "Oh their going to rip me off with this ponzi scheme on my next paycheck again", SS would have never survived, and likely would never have been implemented in the first place.

[nascarnation]

The big problem I see now is that folks like myself who anticipated severe SS and Medicare shortfalls and built a robust 401k portfolio are gonna get screwed anyway.

[FreedomNotSafety]

They didn't stop to think how they were managing to collect a retirement lifetime of retirement checks and medical care from SS of value far exceeding that which they paid into SS? Not one thought when it occurred to them that they paid in $20,000 and collected $300,000 or more? Add up what anyone in their 70’s and 80’s paid versus what they have collected so far.

So some how all that ignorance is an excuse to keep on looting the rest of us?

[freethinker_for_freedom]

“Well, I’m just telling you, most Americans through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, up to probably the late 80s, or 90s never even thought about SS or gave it little thought..”

Most Americans never gave a thought about government spending generally, except they wanted more benefits while paying lower taxes. But if you were conscious during Reagan’s presidency, there was a Social Security crisis then, and Alan Greenspan was put in charge of a panel that recommended raising the rates substantially to put SS on secure footing until 2040. Which happened.

But the government under Reagan, Bush1, Clinton and Bush2 kept spending more and more and we gave ourselves a big tax cut and kept spending even more and then we had a financial crisis to rival the Great Depression so we had to spend even more and now we’re going to pay the piper. Which is what happens in the real world.