Most ordinary citizens know what the long term effects of declining birth
rates and increasing retirees with their longer life spans will have on S
S.

Most don't. I'm not going to belabor statistics here, but here's a brief
sampler. The US Bureau of the Census's projections for the US population
in
2042 versus today (2042 is a key year in some of the SS debates, which is
why I chose it):

2005 (as of yesterday):
295,801,760
2042, low estimate:
314,707,000
2042, high estimate:
490,401,000
2042, "zero international migration series" (you can figure that one out):
322,506,000
2042, "middle series" (best-guess, in other words)
382,555,000

Look at the size of that range, George: between 314 million and 490
million.
Jeez. The most accurate way to interpret it is that Census doesn't have a
freaking idea of what the population will be. Neither does anyone else.
The
gap between "zero immigration" (there is very little emigration from the
US)
and "best guess" is almost 70,000,000 people. Those are immigrants, and
they'll be working, assuming that any of us are. g But what will our
immigration policies be? Do you know?

You can try to cloud the issue with bull****, but the fact remains... the
ratio of those paying in to the system relative to those receiving payment
is and will continue in the same direction... the direction that is fatal to
the system. Why is that truth so hard to admit. Is it because your liberal
idealogy is clouding your thinking?

About birthrates: The rates went UP after you were in 3rd grade, George,
not
down. They hit a peak in the early '50s. So where were you getting the
idea
that the birth rate was going down when you were in 3rd grade?

Don't lecture me about the low birth rate brought on by the depression...
I'm very faminiar with it. I was there, remember. I'm also familiar with
the birth rate that brought on the baby boom. However, the ratio of
beneficiaries to benefactors was and still is moving in the direction that
will be fatal for the system. That's an elemental fact! Get a clue.

If you got
that idea from somewhere, you did your arithmetic wrong. And nobody was
predicting the kind of decline we had over the past few decades. That's a
new phenomenon. Neither you, nor anyone else, had a clue.

Speak for yourself. The sad reason for the decling birth rate is well
known. Those of us with a clue could easily predict it. That's another
whole 'nother liberal issue.

As for lifespan, the U of Chicago med school is predicting a 2- to 5-year
DECLINE in average lifespan in the US within 20 years. The average
lifespan
isn't the figure you want, anyway: it's distorted by higher infant
mortality
rates in the early part of the last century, so it tells you nothing about
the relationship of workers to retirees. The figure you want is "life
expectancy at 65." In the last 25 years, it's increased by only 1.4 years.

But the cold fact remains that it is increasing. More BS... what on Earth
does the infant high mortality in the early part of the last century have to
do with future lifespan DECLINE? I do know about those high rates... My
GGparents raised 5 of their 10 children to adulthood. Do you want to hear
the sad story of burying two of them within twenty miles of their
destination when they immigrated?


So you really had nothing to go on but a bunch of bunk, which is what
George
Bush is running on now. The people who do this kind of actuarial analysis
for a living will tell you the same thing, that the current situation
faced
by SS is the result of the post-WWII baby boom, not the result of some
structural fault with SS. It can be fixed, if we decide that fixing it is
what we want to do.

How... euthanasia? Pollyanna would be proud.

Yes, we could easily have figured it out in grade school that there would
be
a day of reckoning... just not exactly when. Top economists? Phooey!

sigh Sometimes I wonder how we survive as a democracy. . .

sigh Democracy = mob rule. We have to become more aware of our
responsibility when electing our representitives for our representitive
republic. Their most important duty is to select our judiciary to enforce
the laws AS WRITTEN, rather than legislate from the bench. Filibusters are
making it increasingly difficult.


What do you call "socialism"? Get specific. Let's hear what programs
you
object to. Tell us which ones you'd eliminate.

For starters, I would eliminate every program that no Constitutional
basis.

Well, there goes the Army and Air Force. I think we get to keep the Navy.
Some people will be happy to get their slaves back. . .

What!!! Protecting our shores is one of the most important Constitutional
duties. Read the document! Clue... check the preamble first.


Redistributing the rewards for one's efforts by force is at the top of
the
list. What new Marxist socialist programs would you like to start?


Public security is bull****! There is no such thing... only the
illusion
of
security.

There is no private security. There is no such thing, as millions of
people
realized just a few years before you were born. You must have missed
it.

No, I didn't miss the great depression. I lived with it's aftermath
every
day until I left home at 18. I worked very hard to secure my family's
security the only way to be truly secure... with skill, ambition, and
hard
work.

Well, a few tens of millions of people lost their shirts during the
Depression. That's why you had to work so hard -- because your "security"
had gone to hell, and you had to start all over again. That's not
"security." That's *recovery*, which is exactly what my father and
grandfather had to do, too.

So, you rebuilt your security. And now George Bush wants to put people
right
back where they were in 1929: living on an imaginary cloud of private
"security." Bull****. If you didn't learn it then, then you're not likely
to
learn it now.

Maybe you should study the 1929 crash in more detail. Then you would better
understand the dot.com bubble. It had NOTHING to do with skill, ambition,
or hard work.

I doubt if anything will change your mind, George, so believe what you
want.
But the fact is, you had no idea what was going to happen to SS then, and
you have no idea now. Neither does anyone else.

It's dangerous to imagine what other people don't know... especially when
based on what you yourself don't know.

One thing is certain, though, from any real actuarial analysis of the
facts.
Social Security can get over this hump and it can be saved, if we want to
save it. If we become convinced that it can't be saved, then we'll find a
way to destroy it. The question is how many people thought they had it all
figured out when they were in 3rd grade.

Try to understand what someone less eloquent than yourself is saying. The
math necessary to understand the SS mess was learned in the 3rd grade. OK,
maybe it was 4th.

George Willer

--
Ed Huntress