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I cringe every time I hear this canard. It may be a "fact", but no one ever follows up on the rest of the story.
Those 15 workers were "paying in", but since all that extra money was not necessary to support that 1 retired person, it was SPENT by congresspeople with extremely sticky fingers....and it was done repeatedly for FORTY years.
It always reminds me of when Grandma & Grandpa who live far away, and who will not be attending Christmas, send $100 to buy the grandchild a Christmas Present. By the time the money arrives, a TON of presents have already been bought. Why go buy yet another one? Why not just change the "to:/from: tag" on one already bought? The kid still gets the present.
This is what's been happening to SS/Medicare. Boomers were conned into "prepaying" their own retirement because this scenario was known and presented to the public decades ago.. Our legislators warned of this impending doomsday , so of course we voted to prepay, knowing that someday we would be needing the money.
What we failed to realize, is the fact that when spendaholics have money available, they will find a way to spend all they have, and more.
It was a no-win for the public, because at the same time we were all asked told to pay more and more, there actually was a need to bolster the payouts for people who were already retired, since many of them were not getting much at all because they had not paid into the system very much, and they were starting to experience a lengthening lifespan.. We were suckered into helping Granny & Gramps (something that was needed) , setting things up nicely for our parents' futures, and prepaying for ourselves. The whole "GREATEST GENERATION mantra probably started back then too...as a way to add a little extra guilt, because who doesn't love Granny & Gramps?
What we did not plan on, was the way government never delivered , and media totally pretended that nothing had ever happened, and that WE would be "blamed" for the whole mess just because we existed.
The government of now (then , our future) pretends that we came along as a total surprise, unprepared to "handle" our own retirements.
We arrive at retirement age::
minus home equity (or minus home, in some cases) having survived multiple recessions during our work-lives having lost (losing) jobs we still need for another 5-10 years without pensions (replaced with sketchy 401-k's that do not measure up) having lost buying power decade after decade with little, if any savings still supporting children, now grown with kids of their own augmenting incomes for extremely aged parents who outlived their savings with unaffordable or no health care insurance with more media than ever, but media that callously ignores our plight, and criticizes us for noticing it ourselves
The 15-1 ratio blather we hear today is a hoax. It would be a valid point to be made IF the rest of the story were being told as well, but anytime anyone dares to bring that up, they are shouted down, laughed at or ignored.
We were the goose that laid the golden eggs ...our government has been eating omelets for decades, and now the goose is on the menu
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