“I don’t think the contractual guarantee of return is a differentiating factor”
You’re correct.
I’m not so cynical as to think Social Security was a mere shrewd move by FDR. It has been well accepted by Americans, whose only complaint now is that we’re told it’s gonna quit working. It won’t really quit working. As McCain said, we just need to tweak some knobs.
Americans like the idea of helping the needy. Doing it with the federal government sounds like a good idea, but now we see that the federal government has let us down.
I agree that it’s unfortunate that local charities and churches have been largely replaced federal government programs.
As far as 40 and 50-somethings getting screwed, they won’t be completely screwed. What we have here is citizens not paying attention to their government. A lot of grownup people have blindly thought someone else was taking care of them. The greatest sin of our politicians over the last 20 years has been their silence on America’s financial shape.
I agree with Palin, who said in her Iowa speech that an upper class of politicians, industry leaders, finance leaders and lawyers are raking in the big money, passing it around among themselves, giving a little to the poor class, and doing this with money from the middle class.
Interesting how the Politicians are NOT PARTICIPATING in Social Security. I wonder if their system is in jeopardy