Social Security: There Is No Trust; There Is No Fund

[notesdev]

The U.S. recession is wreaking havoc on yet another front: the Social Security trust fund.

With unemployment rising, the payroll tax revenue that finances Social Security benefits for nearly 51 million retirees and other recipients is falling, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. As a result, the trust fund's annual surplus is forecast to all but vanish next year -- nearly a decade ahead of schedule -- and deprive the government of billions of dollars it had been counting on to help balance the nation's books.

The Treasury Department has for decades borrowed money from the Social Security trust fund to finance government operations. If it is no longer able to do so, it could be forced to borrow an additional $700 billion over the next decade from China, Japan and other investors. And at some point, perhaps as early as 2017, according to the CBO, the Treasury would have to start repaying the billions it has borrowed from the trust fund over the past 25 years, driving the nation further into debt or forcing Congress to raise taxes.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/04/social-security-there-is-no-trust-there.html

---

read the whole thing, but not immediately after breakfast

[girl gone mad]

1. I think SS is in real jeopardy now.

Obama and Geithner have both implied that Americans will have to accept a lower standard of living over the long term as a result of this economic crisis. Considering all of the money being poured into insolvent banks, we don't have the money to fix SS. Entitlements are almost always the first think countries facing default go after.

[rfranklin]

2. We could also stop wasting trillions on so-called "defense"

We spend ten times as much as any other country on the military and the return on that investment is negative. We should be richer than any other country but we are instead the biggest debtor nation. So, if we apply cost-benefit analysis, there is no other option but to fire the Pentagon.

[wuvuj]

5. The cost of war?

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461

Due to the enormous military cost of protecting Persian Gulf imports, the hidden cost of oil from that region amounts to $7.41 per gallon of gasoline. The cheapest gas out in my part of the Bay Area is $3.11 a gallon for regular. Add them together, and the true cost of my gas is probably around $10.52 a gallon.

...

All so we could drive our Hummers....

The US military uses more oil than some countries.

[Blue Meany]

10. Uh, actually Social Security is in fine shape...the problem

is it is the only government program that actually has any money, so the rest of govt. has been spending its surplus.

[thevoiceofreason]

18. Hey

At least you offer an opinion here (although it is parroted, you haven't cut and pasted your points). Name a bank that is now insolvent that "money has been poured into." And how much of tat nonexistent "poured-in" money would have otherwise been targted to "fix SS." I'll help you with that one - 0. SS is a current account - always has been, always will be. And it's not some "trust fund" that the US will "go after." (Side note - GGM - you really have to let go of the Fox News talking points - they screw up your argument.)

[girl gone mad]

19. Are you going to stalk me now?

This is how you choose to help your brothers and sisters? Stalking, personal attacks, accusing me of being a troll, a liar and a freeper? What does this accomplish?

Citi is insolvent, possibly Bank of America, too.

[thevoiceofreason]

21. Don't flatter yourself.

You don't mean that much to me.

Under what guidelines have you determined that the Citibank subsidiary of Citigroup is insolvent? You know you have to do it that way for the banking laws, right - you have to look at only the corporation that is the bank. Yes it is shenanigans, yes it is slight of hand, but the bank - Citibank - is not "insolvent." Those of us whose careers deal with that are only too acutely aware of these fun traps.

And I never accused you of being a freeper.

[girl gone mad]

24. Are you an artist or are you in banking?

It kind of makes a difference as to your motives. Seems like you might have a vested interest here.

For the record, my income doesn't come from the financial industry.

[thevoiceofreason]

25. OK. Now we're talking. Good.

I was afraid your fans would jump me (just kidding).

I'm an attorney. My vested interest is that when everyone is focusing on the negatives, it affects juries when I'm going after bad guys - it seems to raise my burden of proof. I live the columns and articles you post every day. But outside of work, my experience is not one of hiding my head in the sand (despite the numerous intimations to the contrary - and I'm grinning now - you have a loyal group of friends here). Instead, I come here occasionally to see whay individuals are thinking and saying. That's why I jumped on the point of posting articles with little of your individual commentary - although I have read a lot of your commentary and, although I disagree as much as I agree - there is too little of it.

And you have to admit - you do post a bunch of these articles.

Beyond that, peace.

BTW, I'm in Houston.

[sendero]

3. Get ready...

... there are plenty of DUers who simply cannot wrap their tiny brains around the FACT that there is no "Trust Fund" at all.

They'll find out when they retire.

[notesdev]

4. To be perfectly accurate

they'll find out when they CAN'T retire.

I really feel sorry for people like a co-worker of mine, who is 7 years away from collecting, and after four decades of paying in he will probably end up with next to nothing to show for it.

I don't know anyone this side of age 50 who expects to collect a dime from it, though.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Wonder how many heart attacks this will cause...

We are both on Soc. Sec. now, eking by as long as we don't go to a hospital or anything.

I've know the fund was being raided, and I am hoping Congress is afraid of a horde of silver haired apoplectic seniors slowly making their way in walkers en masse to the WH.
Or better yet, getting the grandkids to march...with weapons.

[kerrywins]

7. Government Forcing Its Citizens to Pay For a Government Controlled Retirement

is incompatible with our right to property.

[eridani]

13. Property ownership is not a license to kill

The right to life supercedes it.

[kerrywins]

15. Of Course It Isn't.

I don't understand what you are trying to imply here.

[eridani]

20. Old people die without income. If you are suggesting that they rely on the stock market

--for retirement funds, you are completely insane.

[IrateCitizen]

26. Not an accurate statement

Old people die w/o some means of support and that support is not always, nor has it been for most of human history, in the form of "income."

What you are speaking of is a relatively recent phenomenon in the span of human history. The breakup of extended families as a side-effect of industrialization is what caused the epidemics of elderly poverty that finally brought about social security in the Great Depression.

Perhaps we need to look at this problem a little differently. Personally, I think that intergenerational households will become more and more frequent in the coming decades, and that extended families will once again provide a primary means of supporting people in their old age.

Furthermore, extended families play the additional role of maintaining a usefulness of elders in society -- they are the ones who primarily pass on cultural knowledge and memory to the younger generations. I am fully aware of this having grown up in an intergenerational enviroment, with my maternal grandparents not living in the same house but only about 200 yards away from my parents.

I know it's often considered blasphemy, but we should consider whether or not our existing social arrangements borne from industrial civilization are, in fact, the best ones for maintaining our social health. I think that the current notion of "retirement" fails in this regard significantly, effectively infantilizing older people to be useful only as consumers, living out an individualized existence rather than as a meaningful part of a family unit. I'm not saying alternatives will be idyllic by any means -- but rather that out of future hardship we may rediscover arrangements that are more healthy to our social well-being.

[eridani]

27. Old-fashioned extended families are the world's first and biggest Ponzi scheme

Joe Peasant and wife and kids live on a patch of land that can support one family. Only one kid can inherit, and another can marry out. Does that mean they stop at two? No. They keep cranking them out hoping that more than two will live long enough to support them in their old age. We can't afford that pattern. There isn't enough land for everyone to do subsistence farming. Therefore the elderly need incomes.

[IrateCitizen]

28. Your post title bears little resemblance to reality...

I never said that such a situation ever was, or will be, idyllic. However, given that extended families were the norm for pretty much ALL of human history before the industrial age, I think I'll take that as a testament to their stability.

Your reference to subsistence farming is a strawman -- I never said anything about subsistence farming. However, I do believe that growing a portion of one's own food if you have any available space will also become increasingly important over the coming years.

Saying things like "the elderly need incomes" does not necessarily make it possible nor a reality in the years and decades to come. For instance, if we are hitting the limits of economic growth due to resource constraints and ecological degradation, any hope for pensions and social security will go the way of the dodo without continual economic growth.

[eridani]

29. You need income if you don't have enough land for self sufficiency.

That's most of us.

[IrateCitizen]

31. Intergenerational households do NOT depend on self-sufficiency

There's nothing out there that says that "income" cannot play a role in intergenerational households, as opposed to agricultural self-sufficiency. I never made such a claim, and for you to introduce it into the discussion as such is, I perceive, another strawman argument.

Perhaps we will need to get used to living arrangements in which 2,500 sf single-family houses with separate family rooms and living rooms are not possible. Perhaps we need to get used to the idea of several people (possibly of differing ages) sharing a bedroom instead of all of the kids having their own room. In no manner does any of this imply a self-sufficient agrarianism. However, it may be necessary for ensuring that older generations do not go into poverty in the foreseeable future.

In fact, given the multitude of resource constraints coming down the pike, I'd argue that such a future is more likely than the continuation of "retirement" as we've come to know it that you seem so inclined to promote.

[eridani]

32. I live that way now, and I still insist that Social Security is a very good way for the older people

--to hold up their end financially.

[IrateCitizen]

34. "Financially" is the only way for older people to hold up their end?

I'm not disagreeing with you regarding the benefit of the social security system. There is a reason that conservatives have tried to undo it over the past 70 years -- because it is a wildly successful government program for the purpose for which it was designed.

However, that does not guarantee that SS will be feasible in the future. With the demographic bubble of baby boomers moving through the system, combined with declining revenues due to the decline in employment and economic activity, maintaining the system as we've come to expect it may not be possible within a decade or so. Are you insisting that there is absolutely no way that SS will be changed from its current form due to continued economic uncertainty and/or contraction?

Finally, the idea of older people "holding up their end" through strictly financial means is one borne out of the commodification central to the development of capitalism. I prefer to look at the other things that older people bring to the table -- most of which lay outside the realm of "productive economic activity." For example, I have to return to the role of elders I mentioned before -- the passing on of culture and tradition to younger members of the family, as well as helping to take care of children while parents work either inside or outside of the home. Such things may not show up in GDP calculations, but they are invaluable from a social standpoint.

[eridani]

41. SS is fine until 2041

After that, I don't expect to be around. If we can't transition to a "one born, 1 death" stable population by then, it won't matter, as there will be a massive die-off.

[kerrywins]

30. Are You Suggesting Old People Die Unless They Are Given Stolen Property (Money)?

The government should not force its citizens to pay for government controlled retirement.
Not only is it wrong morally (to use force), but its incompatible with property rights.

By force is never the way.

[eridani]

33. By that bullshit logic, all taxes are "stolen money"

Yes, the government really should take your money by force in order to finance public goods. I don't have a problem with that. If you do, go take your money and live on an island. Financing private goods like the bailout? A very different matter.

[kerrywins]

35. Stealing Someone\'s Money and Giving It Directly To Another Person is Theft

and is incompatible with our right to property. I\'m sorry you do no understand that.

[eridani]

42. You don't get that people have the right to live

You have no right to absolute righty to property that you obtained because you live in a society with heavy investment in infrastructural public goods. The rest of society can damned well demand that you pay your share to maintain them.

[JFreitas]

54. Stealing Someone\'s Money and Giving It Directly To Another Person is Theft

Theoretically, social security consists of the government stealing your money now to give (some) of it back o you someday when you need it. Perhaps it is theft of some sort, but clearly it is theft of a different order of what we imply by the term "theft". In addition, it is a scheme that has been ultimately agreed upon by a majority of society. I would not call it "theft", even if I disagreed with it, I think it is a dishonest way of putting it. In some sense it is the equivalent of many types of insurance schemes, whereby a group of people agree to have a tax imposed on them (or their transactions) in order to have a fund to cover a calamity or disaster. In my country we are forced to pay some taxes to such funds (in construction, to finance accident relief schemes, to create a fuvd to protect drivers in the event they are hit by someone that hasn't got insurance and so on). Is this "theft" also? I will freely grant there is a "grey area" but to me, clearly, social security schemes are not "theft". And I do grant you the right to disagree with them (I have understand some of the arguments for disagreeing with SS).

[Po_d Mainiac]

8. A point I tried to make with the post linked below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x62219

The move by Chopper Ben to try to pare down short term rates a few days ago, with the purchase of 10 years didn't go so well. Was that a portal of things to come? :nuke:

[marketcrazy1]

9. I read that

last year the government had a 73 billion dollar Social Security surplus to spend, this year it`s only 16 billion and next year it will be near zero.................

[Patchuli]

49. Respectfully, the word is 'portent' of things to come,

not portal which is a gateway. And I tell you just as a FYI so someone mean won't call the grammar police on you. Welcome to DU! :hi:

[mbperrin]

11. Absolute nonsense: the $2.4 TRILLION dollar Social Security surplus

will allow the system to pay full benefits with no changes at all until 2041.

The article is talking about the yearly addition to the overall surplus, and like any unemployment year, the addition will be smaller this year than in good employment years.

In 2041, the oldest baby boomers will be 91 or dead, the youngest will be 77, 3 years from death, according to most demographers. How did this miracle of coincidence happen? It was no fluke. In the early 80s, boomers knew that they would want to retire someday, and that were lots more of them than any other age group. So - they doubled their own withholding and began building a big bulge of money for a big bulge of retirees.

So we don't HAVE to do anything at all until at least 2041, 32 years from now. If we wished, we could tweak the system by increasing the current income cap on withholding and solve it forever.

Those who tell us there is no Social Security surplus and that we won't collect it fall into one of these categories:
1) The ignorant. They listen to the unwarranted rantings of those with an agenda, like the sellers of annuities, income management programs, and the like.
2) The greedy. They know better, but have a product of their own to sell.
3) The criminal. If they can convince us it doesn't exist, it will be easy to steal.

[notesdev]

12. What you are not getting

is that the 'reserves' of SS consist entirely of US Treasury debt.

Given that we are now up to $1 trillion in the hole every year, where's the Treasury going to come up with the money in order to pay back what is owed to SS?

Wake up. The SS surplus has been borrowed and spent every year, and there's nothing but federal debt in its place. With the ability of the US government to pay back debt in question, given its spending habits and dramatically falling tax revenues, that also puts the ability of SS to cover the promises made into question.

Where's the money coming from, is the question that you have to answer if you think you can refute the article's premise.

[Po_d Mainiac]

14. Now don't go scaring the crap outa everyone

All Treasury has to do is find a willing buyer for the IOU's.....Bet the farm on the Fed 's willingness to add that little item to their balance sheet....problem solved as long as the ink don't run out :nuke:

[happyslug]

16. If US treasury Bonds are no good, so is everything else

Thus this is a non-problem. If the "trust fund" has been spent, then there IS NO MONEY FOR ANYTHING. i.e. No defense, no private pensions, no nothing. This is politically unacceptable and it is Political suicide to whoever says abandon Social Security for ANYTHING ELSE. Thus given a choice between anything else and Social Security, Social Security will prevail. This is what the GOP can not and will not accept, the whole attack of Social Security is an attempt to provide cover to eliminate it, but Social Security has always been to popular. In fact any proposal to eliminate Social Security will face massive opposition from those people over age 50, who are looking to retirement and vote more then younger people (Thus the proposal during the Bush administration to apply any changes on people below age 35, people who tend to vote less then older people and less worried about retirement, it died in Committee).

Whether the reserves exist or not is unimportant, the key is given a choice will Congress vote to cut back Social Security or defense? (the two big items in the Federal Budget). Sooner or later is becomes that choice and even Reagan RAISED taxes to pay for Social Security and kept benefits about the same for most people (Reagan did change the age when survivors gets benefits, he reduced to it to today's 18 from pre-1981 22, Reagan also slowly increased the Retirement Wage from 65 to 67, but only for people baby boomers (Born 1948-1964)and people born afterward).

Bush proposed to change Social Security, but his proposal never made it out of Committee in either house of Congress let alone to any floor vote, and any other changes will be treated the same, the people most affected will vote against anyone who votes for any reduction in Social Security Benefits, even if Defense spending has to be sacrificed to save Social Security. The GOP has tried to come up with reasons why this will not occur, but keep on running against the same brick wall, people have PAID INTO SOCIAL SECURITY SINCE 1981 TO MAKE SOCIAL SECURITY SOLVENT. If the money is gone, people will ask where did the money go? Congress will have to find ways to raise that money to pay back Social Security, or most Congressmen will lose their jobs to people who will find the money to pay Social Security Benefits. Thus Social Security is often called the Third Rail of Politics, Touch it and you die.

Social Security is the most popular program run by the US Government, it affects the most people and thus the most voters. The GOP has run a Campaign that once the trust fund is gone, then there is no money for Social Security. The problem is people will still believe their are entitled to Social Security (And even the GOP agrees that the trust fund is more then enough to pay most if not ALL of Social Security Benefits). Furthermore since 1981 more money has been collected to pay benefits while into the Future, to say the money is gone is to say Congress NEVER intended to pay it back, and no Congressmen is going to win re-election on that slogan (i.e Congressmen will run on "I will raise other taxes and cut other programs to maintain Social Security Payments" NOT "Vote for me, for I vote for Defense spending over paying back Social Security when it was needed").

Given the demand for Social Security, voters will vote out anyone who votes for anything else over Social Security (and that includes defense). Bin Laden is NOT bad enough for most Congressmen to vote for money to hunt down Bin Laden, if that means money diverted from Social Security Payments. The voters will NOT view such a allocation of priorities as valid. Voters will prefer to have both Social Security payments AND Bin Laden being captured, but given a choice between the two, Social Security is most voters first choice by a mile and that is how Congress will vote.

Thus the only way this threat, that the Trust fund is no good, is valid is the rest of the US Budget is bad, i.e. Defense spending is also NOT sustainable, the various other Government Services are NOT sustainable (i.e. no park service, no highway funds). Some how I believe Congress will find the way to pay for Defense and Highways, and Social Security has higher political support then both combined. Thus the only way Social Security is Zero Budgeted, Defense and Highways are Zero budgeted first and the Federal Government is no more (and the state Government are also dead, for similar and related reasons).

[Po_d Mainiac]

23. QA only goes so far

If the "trust fund" has been spent, then there IS NO MONEY FOR ANYTHING. i.e. No defense, no private pensions, no nothing. This is politically unacceptable and it is Political suicide to whoever says abandon Social Security for ANYTHING ELSE.

No Shit! problem is, we (The United States) are defendant upon the strength of the dollar to drive our economy. We currently need to go to the world market for stuff like OIL!

SS checks can and will continue to flow, but if they have no value, we join Zimbabwe on the economic ladder.

[mbperrin]

36. Thank you. You said it very well.

:)

[davekriss]

17. The SS surplus is invested in Treasury Bonds...

...albeit Special Treasury Bonds paying low interest. If the federal government is going to default on its bondholders (interest payments and principle redemptions), then why single out the Bonds that provide the majority of retirement funds for the everyman? Don't believe the hype! It would make the financial/investor class whole by honoring bonds they hold but screw the rest of us not so fortunate to be part of that rarified class. No f**king way, we should resort to pitchforks first!

Financing of social security is not an issue. Financing the general budget is. We have less for warfare, we'll just have to retreat from some of those 700+ military garrisons we maintain around the world. Share values of Halliburton, Bechtel, GE, Bank of America, Citigroup, and their various brethren will just have to fall. Given who benefitted from the last three decades of lassize faire thievery, it's pretty clear who we as a people should make pay (it is their standard of living that should fall, the top 0.5% of our socio-economic pyramid, not the hundreds of millions of others of us who have had their pockets picked over and over again).

[sendero]

22. No my friend...

.. you are ignorant, you think that an IOU written to yourself is "money".

It is not as millions of people will be finding out in the coming years.

[mbperrin]

37. Well, I'll wait and see. OK? I retire next year, so I'll let you know if

money comes or not.

Will you be honest enough to admit you're wrong if history shows you are?

[On the Road]

38. I Was Going to Post Some Statistics

showing the size of the Old Age Fund (now over $2.3T) and the disability fund. Now it appears you know this and are claiming without any further evidence that they simply do not exist.

It is of course possible that there is a massive conspiracy spanning both parties as well as nonpolitical civil servants to construct a fund out of thin air and create a huge organization and superstructure to manage it. Or, alternatively, it could be that you have no basis for your claims.

What you might have said is that you were afraid the government would default on the debt and fail to honor the bonds. That is a reasonable fear for an overextended economy or unstable government. It is indeed possible. Because of its position and history, however, the US is one of the least likely countries to actually do this unless Republicans have their way and intentionally destroy the system.

There are many scare scenarios floating claiming that the fund (yes, that nonexistent fund) will be exhausted in 10, 20, or 50 years. All those scenarios are based on an average growth rate of roughly 2% a year. The average for the last hundred years is about 3%. That is a huge cumulative difference over a period of decades. With 3% the system is fine as it is.

Now the assumptions were made conservatively, as pension fund managers are supposed to do, to ensure the soundness of the pension over time. What is particularly perverse about the scaremongering is that these same conservative assumptions are being used politically to destroy it.

The language hasn't even changed much since Republicans first tried to kill Social Security at birth. The system is in its eighth decade and has a $2T surplus.

[sendero]

39. THEY DO NOT EXIST...

... and it astounds me how many stupid people there are here.

[On the Road]

40. For Everyone Else on the Thread Who Reads These Exchanges,

THIS is what the argument boils down to:

"They do not exist."

No more needs to be said.

[fasttense]

43. Sounds like a right wing talking point.

The idiot free trade Republicons have been yelling fire at Social Security for years. Ever since Raygun started the fund, free traders have been hot to get their hands on the money.

Pretending Social Security is broke is a very good way for Milton want-to-bes to soften up the public for taking the money away. If we tell them over, and over, and over again that the money we borrowed from Social Security does not exist (Of course all the other borrowing the government does is real and we really owe it.) then when the free marketers take it away, no one is surprised.

[sendero]

44. Do you have any idea how SS works..

??? Do you know what the "trust fund" consists of?

Do you think that just because someone is your enemy that EVERYTHING he says is untrue?

The SS "trust fund" is nothing more than the government's ability to tax the populace at the time the funds are needed. With Obama raising the Fed debt by TRILLIONS trying to prop up the banks, how easy to you think it is going to be to borrow that money?

The money does not exist whether you like it or not. Hope you are prepared.

[fasttense]

46. Do you have any idea what you are talking about?

The trust fund was created by Ronny Raygun supposedly to compensate for the baby boomers retirement. For the 1st time in history, the Republicons made a generation pay Social Security twice. The baby boomers have been paying both their parents Social Security AND their own Social Security. The baby boomer's Social Security is tied up in that trust fund. Before Raygun, the current working generation paid for the retiring generation. The trust fund is suppose to disappear when all the baby boomers die. So a drawing down of the fund (or debt owed to the fund) is to be expected.

But of course the Republicons had other plans for the trust fund money and Greenspan borrowed it to hide the true budget deficit that Raygun created by cutting the taxes of the uber wealthy.

Yes, it is borrowed but then so is Chinese and Japanese money. If we are going to default on the Social Security Trust Fund debts then why don't we default on all debts? Why single out Social Security?

[sendero]

48. "Default".

.... is such a nice word. As if I am claiming that NONE of the money will be paid.

I didn't say that. But what I do believe is that benefits will be no where close to what they are today. Because while default is absolutely not impossible, what is more likely is that we'll muddle through as best we can.

My point is that jokers like you talk about a "trust fund" as if it actually contained money. It most certainly DOES NOT. So stop saying that.

[fasttense]

50. Of course "Default" is a nice word, just like leverage

which only means debt. Economists use them to hide what is really happening and to make them sound more benign. You know, like calling another Great Depression a recession. But I digress.

Jokers like you talk as if the government will declare bankruptcy tomorrow and declare Social Security null and void while still paying out on all other US debt. Is debt owed by the US government money or not? Well many advanced nations consider it money and continue to buy our debt. As a federal retiree, retirement pay is considered money when it is considered for a loan. Yet, we are suppose to believe that when it comes to Social Security the US debt means nothing.

I agree with you that more reduced Social Security pay outs and benefits are on their way. But actually they have already started. Because of the little tricks the government plays with reporting inflation, Social Security pays out anywhere between 40 to 75% less than in the 1950s and 60s (depending on which numbers you believe).

Do you really think calling me a Joker and telling me to stop saying (or writing) something is going to make me stop? Just because you tell me to? Do you think I have an authoritarian personality and will do whatever I'm told? Why even bother writing such a thing?

[sendero]

51. No...

.. jokers will be jokers, but the trust fund is a fiction no matter what you say. There is no pot of gold waiting to be pillaged to pay benefits. And while you personally might not be one of the folks claiming there is, there are serveral of those folks here and it gets old.

I'm well aware of the CPI erosion to SS started by Clinton.

Leverage means a lot more than debt by the way, you might want to read up on that.

[Crewleader]

45. k&r

Thanks for posting notesdev

[hughee99]

47. Being under 35, I am 100% convinced that I will never receive a dime from SS

The "trust" was gone long ago, especially for younger workers.

[upi402]

52. When will we raise taxes on the RICH...

who have benefited so handsomely from all the corporatist scheming?
It's unavoidable. Obama needs to stop trying for cooperation and destroy the corporate media and begin to educate Americans about the truth before it's too late for his budding administration and the USA.

[roamer65]

53. You will get every dime you paid into SS and then some.

However, the dollars you will get will not buy you squat.