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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Smith who wrote (254151)	6/14/2010 7:29:36 PM
From: ajtj99	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 306849

When pensions were introduced by the railroads in the 1880's, the idea behind the concept was to get rid of old, unproductive workers and replace them with youthful and likely 3-times more productive workers. The 30-year and out system meant a used up and ready to die 50-60-year old could be replaced by a strong and healthy 16-20 year old. This was at a time when the average life expectancy in the US was 50-years old. The railroads wanted to get rid of older workers so they could get on with the process of dying. Pensioners were likely to die before they could collect much of what was supposedly coming to them. That was the original intent of pensions, including Social Security. When the Social Security Act was introduced in the mid 1930's, the act set the age for collecting benefits at 65 when the average life expectancy was 64-1/2. The intent of the original Social Security actuarial tables was that on average, you were supposed to be dead before you could collect. You'd have to raise the retirement age for Social Security collection to 84 today to get back to the original actuarial intent of the act. Few people understand the original actuarial intent of these acts, and they wonder why the system is bankrupt.