You know what, John. That's an interesting concept. You said, "insurance". Indeed, social security today works alot like cash value insurance. You pay premiums (alot of premiums) and you hope to get something to help you retire with, if all your other retirement plans fall through. Your risk is that the insurance company (the SS trust fund) may run out of money and fold before you can collect the cash value that you've accumulate. Very interesting. If you think of it like that, I guess social security is a lot easier to swallow.
Unfortunately, we know that this insurance company will run out of money by 2042. Our kids won't get any money for their retirement, unless our gov't runs a significant deficit, raises taxes, or cuts benefits.
I for one haven't funded their colleges and got them on their feet, just to watch a significant chunk of their money get handed to a system that will shaft them out of their retirement. Thus my interest in fixing the system for our children, by giving them more control over their own destiny. The gov't is notoriously inefficient. We need to take back control of our children's retirment from the gov't. Lucky for me (and you, if you really were in Vietnam), we don't have to worry about it, as far as getting our share of social security. |
