retirement during the collapse

RETIREMENT DURING THE COLLAPSE
I know that from time to time I've made a totally innocent remark like "Social Security is Old Fart Welfare" or something similar and people get all bent out of shape and start ranting about a non existent "lock box" sounding exactly like Al Gore after he took a few strange looking mushrooms at an Earth Day parade. I once read somewhere that the average Social Security recipient gets back everything he paid into the system after less than two years. So, in essence, if you don't die by 67 you are on geriatric welfare. Now, having said that, I also acknowledge that most of us do benefit somehow from some type of government program. Or multiple programs. If the food bank where I work for minimum wage didn't get federal grants I wouldn't have a job. I don't care if you are sucking at the government tit, I really don't. 99% of all programs are going to be funded by fiat dollars printed out of thin air, not by taxes. All of our taxes go to occupying the Iraqi oil fields and paying the bankers interest. I only get bent out of shape when people come across with the attitude that they are receiving an entitlement. No, you are not owed a retirement. If you are lucky enough to stay on the gravy train, more power to you. But don't think I want the privilege of paying higher taxes ( you can bet the SS tax will go up soon, so indirectly it is a generational tax ) and prices ( through inflation that pays most of the recipients ) so you can retire to Florida and compound that BS with an attitude you are entitled to it in the first place.
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Look, Social Security was a good idea at first. So many workers supported so few retirees that it was a painless way to provide a social safety net. Like high Union wages it provided a remedy to a problem. But then, just like High School drop outs thinking they deserved to make $30 an hour putting screws into sheet metal helped bankrupt the car companies ( I'm not discounting the role of greedy corporate types, just saying the Unions were equal in unrealistic expectations ), too many retirees have few other savings looked to SS as a way to retire, rather than using the system as a safety net. It became an entitlement rather than something they could fall back on if needed. Want became need. Government money replaced personal savings. I know government encouraged the dependence. I understand that inflation penalizes savings. I don't blame people using the system after all this time because that is basically all we've been allowed to have. It is like taking a civil servant job, one of the last avenues left open to a middle class lifestyle. I might not agree with it, but I understand how you have few options left. The age when you had the option of opting out from government help is pretty much over.
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So, let's leave the blame game alone, agree that there is nothing to replace the flawed system, and look into the very near future to see how you are going to get screwed on your retirement. As I have pointed out to you before, there is a huge glaring warning sign for everyone to see. In the 1950's, the Supreme Court ruled that the government was not compelled to pay you SS. They never replaced that ruling and they certainly don't advertise it. But once the Feds start to seriously get squeezed between a much worse economy and increased difficulty in keeping the global peace ( i.e., anywhere our bankers or corporates have a stake in financially becoming harder to pacify ) the last thing they are going to care about is if Grandma Gertrude can pay to keep her air conditioning turned on the lowest setting ( I don't understand why Florida retirees blast the air conditioning and then wear sweaters ). As has been amply demonstrated recently, the little people are scum and unwanted. The shrinking pie will continue to go to the bankers, corporates and politicians. Just because the Seniors were once a great voting block won't mean spit in our currently unfolding energy shrinking economy. Welfare was a product of energy excess. Period. It had nothing to do with need or want or generosity. It was a placebo and pacifier and payoff. The ending of energy surplus means welfare of all stripes is going to end.
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Even if the Seniors are still paid, it will be in inflated dollars. I wouldn't count on even that spit in the eye, but for a time you will be paid in official inflation rate dollars rather than in actual inflation rate dollars. That is already being done and might even account in some measure for the system holding on as long s it has. As Ms. Carpenter could tell you, air is an acceptable substitute for food. Soon, that will be the official government policy. Well, sure, milk is $50 a gallon. But you can find a substitute so food inflation isn't factored into the COLA. And, sure, a bus ride is $10 ( senior discount rate ), but oil will be coming down any second now so energy isn't counted in your COLA. And that is best case scenario, if they don't start doing means testing or just simply deny new applicants or some other form of denial. One fine Florida morning I waited in line at the Food Stamp office, surrounded by nicely dressed cell phone talking minorities. I had just had my child support payments jacked up and was left with $500 a month to live on. A bit hard with rent and trailer payments at $500. I didn't qualify because my gross was too high. That is the kind of thing you can look forward to.
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Less immigrants are coming into the country, for lack of jobs. You can be sure that their past contributions made the budget numbers look pretty good. Now add in the high unemployment rates, the local and state governments going broke and the first huge wave of Boomers retiring this year. The system is far less viable than you want to believe. If the Feds were playing with COLA numbers at the very beginning of the economic contraction, how much worse off do you think it is now? Now, all that is pretty old hat. Let's introduce the latest and greatest. Health care reform. How much would you like to wager that the root cause behind its push ( besides creating another hopefully effective bubble ) is to replace Medicare and Medicaid and the Prescription Drug plan with something a heck of a lot cheaper? Again, we will see means testing. And, unlike with SS which requires a monthly check even if the amount is reduced, medical care can be postponed and pushed back and denied on first request, etc. You can save a butt load of money denying care until the recipient dies off and saves you a lot of trouble. And, this is a backdoor euthanasia policy. See most other nations national medical care for examples.
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Just scratching the surface here on how the old ones will be abused and killed off. It's all about population reduction and an overwhelmed welfare system facing a shrinking budget. Not at first, but eventually you will be abandoned. So enjoy the check while you can.
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