In article , Larry Blanchard wrote:
In article ,
says...
In article , Larry Blanchard
wrote:

I'm an "Elder Moocher" who paid 15% of his self-employed income into SS
for many years at or near the maximum rate.

Ever stop to think about how much better of you'd be, if the government had
permitted you to keep and *invest* that 15%, instead of taking it from you?

And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. I wasn't given that
choice.

Neither were any of the rest of us allowed to opt out of this unConstitutional
Ponzi scheme. Unfortunately.

And don't forget that SS eligibility age and average lifespan are very
close to each other. A lot of people never collect or collect for very
few years.

True when Social Security first started.
False now, and has been for a very long time.

Eligibility age is all the way up to, what, 68 now? Average lifespan is quite
a lot greater than that.

And average lifespan is all the way up to 70-something. That's a "lot"
greater?

When "70-something" means 77, yes, it is. And it's actually even higher than
that for those who survive childhood illness and accident into middle age.
Let's look at some facts:

In 1940, life expectancy at birth was 62.9 years, i.e. two years *short* of
the Social Security eligibility age. Now it's 76.9 years.

US Life Expectancy at Selected Ages, 2000
0 76.9
[...]
35 43.6 [additional years expected]
40 38.9
45 34.4
50 30.0
55 25.7
60 21.6
65 17.9
70 14.4

Source: World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003, page 75.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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