A Simple Program, A Complex Problem

No, I can only hunt-and-peck on qwerty now. Luckily, it's very easy to change the layout in any modern OS. (Mostly I use Linux and OSX, but it's not to hard to switch on windows either).

You do have to become a very proficient touch-typist, however - since you can't look down at the keys when you're on a borrowed computer.

It also has the pleasant side-effect of making your computer unusable by co-workers, and making it much harder for someone to snoop passwords looking over your shoulder on a shared computer.

My prediction is that the gutless wonders in Congress, rather than exercising any fiscal restraint, will substantially reduce benefits to the baby boomers to keep their Ponzi scheme and free ride afloat.

Any way it is sliced, the choices are grim. Raising in taxes on the Gen X- and Y-ers to pay off the baby boomers MAY buy Congress some time, but, as the baby boomers die off, the Gen X- and Y-ers will have their revenge and a lot of new faces will probably be showing up in Congress. Reducing benefits and raising retirement ages for the baby boomers will have a more immediate effect because the boomers represent a large voting block.

IMO, Congress owes us a bunch of money that we will never see again. I think it would be a kindness to let SS go bankrupt and never again have another such piece of junk "social" program again.

I think it would be a kindness to let SS go bankrupt and never again have another such piece of junk "social" program again.

It never was a social program. It was really about socialism, but socialism's opponents kept that from happening.

The idea behind social security was to extract retirement funds from the private investment markets and put them in the hands of the government, which would "invest" them on behalf of retirees. The result would have been the World's Largest Mutual Fund, with enough money to buy controlling interest in the Fortune 500 and then some. Presto... government ownership of the means of production.

Enough people saw that coming, and opposed it, that the requirement that Social Security funds only be invested in government securities was inserted. The socialists were disappointed, but they could live with that because it still resulted in huge sums available for government spending programs, which are the next best thing (if you're a socialist) to owning the private economy.

One can only imagine what the size of the US economy might be today if all that money had been available for capital investment over all those decades... instead of being spent by politicians on near-term consumption programs to buy votes.

The idea behind social security was to extract retirement funds from the private investment markets and put them in the hands of the government, which would "invest" them on behalf of retirees.

If you go back and read the original act that created the SS system, it wasn't even that good. It was an out and out money grab with no guarantee that there would be anything back. FDR dreamed this Ponzi scheme up to grab some cash and sold the plan as a government sponsored retirement plan. But it's initial intent, from what I have read in the original act, was pure theft.

However, you are correct that the socialists failed to make it a pure socialist event. But they gave it a good shot. And got very close to their goal. Subsequent socialists have proven why socialism is a formula for failure. It's called "Social Security".

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