One other detail about Social Security that we, in our good fortune, tend to forget: when the program was originally designed, people didn't generally live that long after age 65. Chemotherapy? Organ transplants? Laproscopic exams? Microsurgery? Cardio-angioplasty? Never heard of 'em! Our superantibiotics and other designer drugs were undreamed of. High blood pressure went untreated, causing countless strokes that resulted in death because of the lack of the treatment strategies we have now. And let's not even start on diabetes and osteoporosis, two other scourages of old age.

When Social Security was developed, its financial structure was something people recognized: life insurance, only in reverse. It wasn't about living; it was about dying. You, in your optimism, bet that you were going to survive long enough to collect. The government, based on statistics, bet that you wouldn't, or if you did, you wouldn't for long. The soundness of the structure came from the transfer of funds from the many people who died at 68 to the few who lived to be 80, and to the widows and minor orphans of those who died at 50. Of heart attacks that could have been avoided by triple bypass surgery, had there only been such a thing.

The gun you see at your head, Tom, is the same one not being used to shoot old people who have the temerity to want to live to be 85 and still keep their homes. Using government stability to ensure an income to the infirm elderly is a humane goal for a society, one that American society at large (made as it was of people who saw the results of rugged financial individualism in the early 1930s) could get behind. The trouble is, 65 isn't nearly as infirm today as it was in the 1930s and '40s.

The problem with Social Security is that it hasn't kept up-to-date with the demographic trends of the population it was designed to serve. It was never meant to carry millions of people through a 15- to 20-year retirement. Yet increasingly this is what is expected. The structure has to be reformed to reflect demographics, not political philosophy.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen soon, though. For one thing, old people vote. For another, the last thing our generation wants to do is to take money away from our parents, if only because we don't want them to have to come live with us. They're too opinionated and we're too bossy. ;) Wait until all the GIs are gone, and then let's see what happens.

Regards--
Mary Anne