I was just looking at my 2010 Social Security Statement.

[Snotcicles]

Between me and my employers, $147,290.00 of that fund is my damn entitlement.
They can cash me out right now.

[HockeyMom]

1. Maybe we should all do that

Send in our statements and demand OUR money NOW.

[Snotcicles]

2. Me and mine will be lucky to get Eighty of that back. nt

[SharonAnn]

21. And demand what your employers paid, too. That's an equal amount.

[Warpy]

3. That money has been spent on people who needed the insurance

What you paid were insurance premiums, not any sort of cumulative investment.

You'd be just as successful demanding your car insurance payments over the last 25 years returned because you didn't have any accidents and you could use a new car now.

[n2doc]

6. A chunk of it wasn't spent on people

It is the "surplus". In theory it is still there. However it is looking more and more like that surplus will simply have been spent on useless wars and tax cuts for the rich.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. 2.x trillion hasn't been spent at all.

As we have been WAY OVERPAYING through FICA for the last 30 years. That mother f'ing surplus was supposed to be the cushion needed to fund the boomer retirement, and the only crisis is that billionaires want to keep their surplus funded tax cuts instead of paying us our pensions.

[Snotcicles]

4. I'd be happy just leaving it alone because that was the deal, but if they want

to break that deal, all bets are off. They already got me for about ninety grand though my 401k.

[Kaleva]

5. Supreme Court has already ruled you have no right to that money.

[guitar man]

11. If I don't have a right to get it back

Then I have right to the benefits promised in exchange for it. I will absolutely not tolerate the outright theft of that money, I worked too damn hard for it.

[Kaleva]

14. Ah, no you don't have rights to it.

"The Supreme Court has established that no one has any legal right to Social Security benefits. The Court decided, in Flemming v. Nestor (1960), that "entitlement to Social Security benefits is not a contractual right"."

"The noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits are based on his contractual premium payments. Pp. 608–610. (b) To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of "accrued property rights" would deprive it of the flexibility and <363 U.S. 603, 604> boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands and which Congress probably had in mind when it expressly reserved the right to alter, amend or repeal any provision of the Act."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28United_States%29#The_Supreme_Court_and_the_evolution_of_Social_Security

[guitar man]

15. Well

To hell with them and to hell with the whole goddamn US government then. If they are going to treat us like that as far as I'm concerned the whole goddamn lot of them should be put in stocks and pubicly whipped. I've worked like a damn dog for over 30 years only to be stolen from... this doesn't sit well with me at all. :grr:

[Kaleva]

16. I think many are upset 'cause they believed SS was a bonafide, firm contract.

If one works hard and pays into the system their entire working lives, when they retire, they'll be guaranteed medicare and a SS check. However, that is not the case and it's something I myself just found out about when this debate began recently.

[guitar man]

17. I'm curious

As to what to call something you make hard earned payments into all your life with no guarantee of ever getting anything in return for it. If they belly it up and go south with our money, I'd say a revolution is in order.

[guitar man]

19. ...

Delete

[Mimosa]

7. Wow.

I don't know how to read those things.

[Snotcicles]

12. Page 3 right smack in the middle of the page. It even shows how much you paid into Medicare. nt

[WorseBeforeBetter]

18. It's quite a walk down memory lane with those statements...

I just grabbed the ones I've saved since 2000 thanks to your post. My contributions start when I was a junior in high school, and I'm now pushing the half-century mark. Oy.

[guitar man]

20. Mine start in 1979

Dishwasher at Walgreens restaraunt. I can look over all the years and remember what I was doing to earn the money I paid in for any given year. I wonder if the billionaire bastards that want to steal it have any idea what I've done over the years to earn that money. Somehow I doubt it...

[WorseBeforeBetter]

24. Oh, the glamor!

My first contributions came from a front desk clerk gig at a local high school during the summer school session. I was up at oh dark hundred and bored out of my mind.

The BBs are so far removed from us that they don't know and don't care -- we're just cheap labor.

[Snotcicles]

25. I'm glad we get that ever year. My first year was 1969 I made $556.00.

I was a bus boy at a super club. I saw the Ink Spots, Frank Fontaine, and others while working there.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

28. Kewl. 1979 was a little more "exciting" for me.

I had a part-time gig selling soft-serve at the Capital Centre. Scoping guys and taking in the very end of concerts and hockey/basketball games -- much simpler times!

I guess this year we'll all be downloading the statements from SSA. In light of proposed cuts, I can hardly wait...

[guitar man]

27. Yeah really cheap

I was sandblasting on a swinging scaffold underneath an offshore oil rig that was jacked up and being overhauled in the shipyard. Hot, hard nasty work but it paid,eh, ok anyway. The guy next to me took a bad step and fell to his death, about 80 feet below. Before they had even removed the body the foreman was barking at us to get back to work, and I did because i really needed the job.

I've always wondered what it would be like to be priveleged enough not have to ever have to make such decisions...

[WorseBeforeBetter]

29. Geez, that's horrible...

but not an unexpected management reaction. Sadly, many of the FUX-brainwashed masses would be quick to respond with "Tough, he knew the risks." Miners, soldiers, fire-fighters...I've gone 'round and 'round with wingnut neighbors and coworkers over this too many times.

[guitar man]

9. I agree

I've said it before, if they want to do away with SS, fine, I'll take my money back, all of it, in cash please.

[Rex]

10. That is what Wall Street wants you to do and to invest it into your stock

or bond of choice.

[Snotcicles]

13. Me and some friends want cash so we can go in together and buy us a Congressman. nt

[WCGreen]

22. Think of all the people who have contributed and died before they

are entitled to their entitlement.

[Change Happens]

23. I actually heard this as one idea: pay back the under 35-40 year olds and tell

them, it is over for you...etc. Take care of the older ones with the monies available...Until it all runs out.

[NorthCarolina]

26. Sorry, but it's already gone. n/t