A national idiocy
One of the things about the Social Security system that I find most disturbing is how like gravity it curves the American space and warps our idea of who we are. Just one case in point: "people are living longer now, so we should raise the retirement age." You've been hearing that from different quarters, right?
What this means, of course, is that Americans expecting to retire at 65 and thereafter receive their Social Security "benefit," would need to wait additional years because, after all, they are living longer than when Social Security was invented. So goes the rationale.
But my idea of America informs me that Americans should be retiring earlier, not later, and that when they retire earlier they should be doing it behind an investment portfolio as big as they can make it. It should be an investment portfolio started by their parents as early as their presence in the womb. And thereafter built with gusto from the time of a teenager's very first job, all with the intention of being free to retire as early as possible and pursue as many interests as one has the energy to pursue. How about retiring at 40? That is theoretically doable if, in a portfolio that has been under long construction, you own a broad selection of equities, debentures, and other securities that will pay you enough annually even while you still grow it as a capital base.
That's all so confusing, you say? Don't like capitalism? Well, then, wait until you're 70, and get your "benefit."
I hear the objections: "we can't invest for ourselves, let alone our children, when we can barely get by on our income."
But you are already "investing" for your retirement. Every week, you and your employer are putting 12.4 percent of your pay into the Social Security system. Fifty or so years after your first "contribution" you'll get your first "benefit" as determined by Congress. You might be 70 by that time, and you might be getting "70 cents on the dollar" of what you might have expected, and there will be two workers out there paying that money to you out of their paychecks. The 12.4 percent of your pay that went in every week went to the same place, paying people already retired. You never owned or invested any of it.
So you do have something to invest: that big hit on your weekly paycheck that the government throws right into the largest Ponzi scheme ever conceived by mankind. It is the great herd of independent minds that insists that it's all in your best interests. Well, do you think that it's all in your best interests?
What this means, of course, is that Americans expecting to retire at 65 and thereafter receive their Social Security "benefit," would need to wait additional years because, after all, they are living longer than when Social Security was invented. So goes the rationale.
But my idea of America informs me that Americans should be retiring earlier, not later, and that when they retire earlier they should be doing it behind an investment portfolio as big as they can make it. It should be an investment portfolio started by their parents as early as their presence in the womb. And thereafter built with gusto from the time of a teenager's very first job, all with the intention of being free to retire as early as possible and pursue as many interests as one has the energy to pursue. How about retiring at 40? That is theoretically doable if, in a portfolio that has been under long construction, you own a broad selection of equities, debentures, and other securities that will pay you enough annually even while you still grow it as a capital base.
That's all so confusing, you say? Don't like capitalism? Well, then, wait until you're 70, and get your "benefit."
I hear the objections: "we can't invest for ourselves, let alone our children, when we can barely get by on our income."
But you are already "investing" for your retirement. Every week, you and your employer are putting 12.4 percent of your pay into the Social Security system. Fifty or so years after your first "contribution" you'll get your first "benefit" as determined by Congress. You might be 70 by that time, and you might be getting "70 cents on the dollar" of what you might have expected, and there will be two workers out there paying that money to you out of their paychecks. The 12.4 percent of your pay that went in every week went to the same place, paying people already retired. You never owned or invested any of it.
So you do have something to invest: that big hit on your weekly paycheck that the government throws right into the largest Ponzi scheme ever conceived by mankind. It is the great herd of independent minds that insists that it's all in your best interests. Well, do you think that it's all in your best interests?
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