This may come as something of a shock to you but I have a stalker. I’ve been stalked for over 10 years now. I’ve never bothered to alert the police because the stalker didn’t actually strike me as dangerous until recently. Now I think they’ve got to be stopped but I doubt the police could help. My stalker is the American Association of Retired Persons.
The AARP only shows up in my mail box a few times a year but I find them extremely annoying. First because they reminded me that I was about to turn 50. Knowing that was bad enough, having some stranger remind me of it was a bit much. When they kept reminding me of being over 50 it got really annoying. They used to send me a magazine showing all the cool things people my age (and older) are doing. I know I’m a baby boomer and there’s nothing I could do to change that even if I wanted to and I don’t want to anyway. The other thing I don’t particularly want to do is identify with boomers. As far as I’m concerned baby boomers are the greatest generation’s one big screw up. But we’ll save that for another time.
Okay, so what’s my problem with AARP? They’re irresponsible. Yep they do some good things, no doubt. They get us old farts discounts on all sorts of things from drugs (when you’re old enough for AARP they’re referred to as “medication”) to vacations, from insurance to safe driver courses. But. But they insist on “…encouraging policy makers and leaders to strengthen Social Security…” and what that means to them is just plain wrong. And it’s got to stop.
Social Security needs to change. Not in the Bush Administration’s ideal of all of us plowing our money into Wall Street so we could start low on the endless upward spiral and get off when we stop working and live like Scrooge McDuck for the rest of our lives. Bags full of money all over the house that we’ve astutely horded throughout our working years that we now have available for our every whim. How’s that working out for you after the last few months?
Social Security needs to change because it was never a savings or investment plan. It was a social contract between people under retirement age to take care of people, at a minimal level, who are over retirement age. The age was set at 65. According to “info please” if you were born in 1935, the year Social Security was created, your life expectancy was 61. If you were born in 2004 it’s 78. That’s a problem right there, isn’t it? They didn’t really figure on paying out for more than a couple of years when this started. There were plenty of people paying in for the number of people who were being paid. The payouts were eventually tied to inflation but they’ve never done anything to adjust the age at which we can collect. Well that’s great for us but it’s a killer for our kids and it’ll be worse for their kids and their kids.
Unless the kids just say screw you Grandpa you mucked it up and I’m not covering your ass when you couldn’t be bothered to do the obvious.
Look I’d love to be able to collect at 66 or 67 or 68 with full benefits but it just doesn’t make sense. What does? Damned if I know the details but the basic facts seem pretty obvious. We’ve got to raise the age to something around 80 if we’re going to have a chance at making it work. What we’re going to do with all those geezers continuing in the labor force gumming up the works like the plaque in their arteries I can’t say but we can’t have them sitting around in Boca checking to see if the direct deposit on the Social Security came through while they’re waiting for the shuffleboard tournament to start.
And we’ve got to means test it. Warren Buffett collecting Social Security is insane. I don’t know that he does collect but if he paid in, he can take out and that’s just crazy. Somebody smarter than I am can decide what numbers make sense but it’s nonsense that because Alex Rodriguez paid Social Security taxes that he should collect when he’s 65. It’s not a savings program. It never was. It’s a social contract. I helped take care of the Grandmas to my generation so my grandchildren’s generation would help out when us boomers break the tape at retirement age.
When you hear someone say what a difficult problem Social Security is becoming what they’re really saying is they don’t have the guts to do the obvious. Raise the age of eligibility, and means test it. Until the AARP is willing to support that, to me they’re just stalkers.
