Repeat after me - benefit. Ben-e-fit. Benefit. Social Security is a BENEFIT.

[customerserviceguy]

126. I think it's highly unlikely

that we will ever return to the boom times seen between recessions in the post WWII era. Frankly, I think it was the baby boom that caused that robust economy to arrive, as US society geared up first to build for the boom, then the boom itself sustained the economy as a large cohort of people entered their productive years and began consuming things.

Now that they're expecting to be on the receiving end of Social Security and Medicare, rather than on the paying end of those programs, we're going to see the real crunch coming. If the boomers had reproduced at the rate their parents had, we might have put this off for another generation, but eventually we'd have to see a slowdown in births as the ability of the nation to keep growing would run in to natural limits.

I never called for giving money to rich people. In fact, I believe that ALL the Bush tax cuts should expire for everyone. Continuing them as long as we have is just giving credence to the Bushite voodoo economics that created them. It's time to start paying the bills. And I really am not all that comforted that US one percenters hold the debt rather than foreigners. Neither group has the interests of the average American at the top of their agenda.