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Here we go again.

Money was TOO taken out of the SS trust fund. Further, the money was never put in there. Husband’s 401K plan invested the money, didn’t spend it, and it grew to great amounts. Us boobs out here in la-la land understand this.

The gubmint disallows folks taking other people’s money that they invested in good faith and spending it on their own needs. They did not even obey their own laws.

But move on....maybe someday you’ll convince somebody.

I must suppose in the end we all agree that it’s a problem.

There's a difference between a "fund" on paper, which is just a balance on a ledger, and "fund" in the bank, which is an amount of actual cash available to "fund" the "fund".

Since the paper balance SS trust has been used to finance the US Government's over-spending for almost 2 generations now, there is no cash fund available to actually out accrued benefits. And there is no coffee can full of money buried out behind the US Treasury. Just the good name of this country to back the issued currency.

Facts are stubborn things. The Treasury issued interest bearing, non-market T-bills in the amount of the surplus. The money could have been invested elsewhere rather than T-bills, but it wasn't. The General Fund must come up with the money to redeem the T-bills so benefits can be paid. This is not the reason why SS is unsustainable.

The gubmint disallows folks taking other people’s money that they invested in good faith and spending it on their own needs. They did not even obey their own laws.

Any contributions an individual makes into the system do not belong to him/her per Flemming v. Nestor.

If we don't become informed on this issue, we will be unable to counter the false arguments from the Left that want to perpetuate these Ponzi schemes. SS and Medicare are failed welfare systems. They are actuarily unsustainable.

oney was TOO taken out of the SS trust fund. Further, the money was never put in there. Husband’s 401K plan invested the money, didn’t spend it, and it grew to great amounts. Us boobs out here in la-la land understand this.

Try this little exercise as I did years ago. Take the peformance chart for a stable conservative mutual fund that has been around since the first day you started work. Make a spread sheet and using your SS earnings statement put those SS moneys in every year and calculate the performance of the MF against your SS money (your money to start with). Unless you were a very low wage earner, you more than likely would have more than a million dollar next egg today AND it would pass to your heir when you die.

In my case I started investing in funds about 8 years after my first job at age 17. Today I would be a multimillionaire if I also had been able to invest my SS funds in the same funds that I invested in on my own, so there is nothing hypothetical about it. Instead I get $1500 per month and it stops when I die.

The argument from the left is "But you wouldn't have the discipline to save for retirement, therefore you need the Nanny State to do that for you".