The Social Security Reality Check

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All right, guys, I’m gonna offer up some. I’m sorry. This is some some tough love. Tough love when it comes to Social Security. I’ve said this for years on the program. I’m not Mary Poppins. There’s no spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Much of what I serve up here on this program ends up being a jagged little pill. but don’t shoot the messenger. Don’t get angry with me over reality.

Over facts, things that I’ve been warning people about for years. doing a another guest appearance this morning, radio show, and host is like, yeah, people have been calling up and saying all we need to do to fix Social Security is get rid of the the waste and fraud. You know how many illegals are getting Social Security not supposed to? First and foremost, okay. no. No, no. You you keep telling.

yourself that you keep telling yourself that it’s waste and fraud that has destroyed social security. No, it hasn’t. Okay. It’s a Ponzi scheme. It’s a Ponzi scheme. Now they could eliminate, and I like to get rid of all the waste, fraud, and abuse of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all of those things, but it’s it’s not gonna make a dent. It’s not gonna change the year it goes under. You know what was funny?

They act they they actually put out a story. the fork the folks over at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, and they did a study and they said, Well, guess what? you know, Social Security may not get cut in twenty thirty two, it might be twenty thirty three.

Hey, schmuck, okay, there’s a ticking time bomb sitting in this room. Okay, you might want to defuse it. what’s the third rail of American politics? Tell me about it. Tell me about it. I’ve been warning people about this for a very long period of time. When when I’m discussing with people in regards to putting together their finances, their final financial plan.

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There’s that, you you could they have those kind of like they got these financial planning software programs that we don’t use. and they have what do you expect to get in Social Security? You gotta put that in. No. I’m not putting something in that quite frankly, you can’t rely on and you are not legally entitled to. Again, that that’s something that

Still blows people away. People get angry with me. I’ve been paying it my whole entire life. I’m entitled to it. I hate to break it to you. You ain’t entitled to shit. There’s been two Supreme Court cases. Two Supreme Court cases that said, guess what? They can cancel Social Security tomorrow, and you’re not entitled. You have no recourse. This is why, this is why Social Security doesn’t show up.

As a liability in our debt picture. You know, you talk about our country’s $39 trillion debt. I bang that drum all the time. If you actually included the liabilities for Social Security, it’d be a hell of a lot bigger than that. If we actually did our books properly as a nation, the picture is much, much worse. But again, that’s that’s how they avoid that. You’re not legally entitled to it.

I’m gonna go back in time. I I pulled up a piece that I did 21 years ago. 21 years ago. 20 years old. You’re about to take your first post-collegiate job, you’re minding your own business, watching a football game on a Sunday afternoon when all of a sudden there’s a knock on the door. You reluctantly go to the door and you open it. Where on the step stands a tall, lanky gentleman with gray hair, long beard, holding a briefcase.

Hello, my name is Sam. I’m from the Big Gov Investment Firm, and I’m here to start your special Big Gov retirement plan. You politely tell Sam that you’re not interested in what he’s selling and start to close the door when a swift kick props the door open and subsequently scares the hell out of you. Sam looks you straight in the eye and tells you, You, you, my friend, you don’t have a choice. Yeah.

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One of the greatest investment con the largest Ponzi scheme ever is social security. Again, if if I was to show up at your door when you’re 20 years old and demand 15%. 15%. Well, you know what? Yeah, we’ll we’ll get half of it’s paid by your employer, but that’s your money of every paycheck for your entire working life. If I were to take those funds.

If I to take those funds, invest them in an undiversified manner in instruments yielding less than quite frankly two percent. then if I was to implement this this a moral, you know, untimely death caveat. Okay. what what what what do you think would happen to me?

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I I lose my license, I go to jail.

I go to jail if I basically implemented the same program the government had. let’s let’s go back. Okay. 1930s, Roosevelt’s taking a portion of everyone’s paycheck and redistributed at the retirement age. back then, 1930s, there were 41 workers for every one retiree.

The payroll tax was 2%. And it was only on the first 3,000 of earnings. Again, if you were retiring in 1940s, you had a nice return on that. Today, not so much. I also want to remind everybody on January 17th, 1935, FDR. FDR himself saw the necessity to change the pay as you go financial scheme.

He said for perhaps the next 30 years, again, this is 1935. Okay. Funds will have to be provided by the states and the federal government to meet these pensions. But after that, it would be necessary to move to what he called voluntary contributory annuities by which initi individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. Basically, Roosevelt was talking about the need to have personal accounts.

I want everybody to think about this. Think about this for a second. Imagine, imagine every dime that you contributed and then obviously your employer put in over your entire life went into an account for you, account for you that just went into an S P 500 index fund.

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Do you have any have any idea whatsoever how much money you would have? What senior citizens would get? former Democratic s senator and governor of Nebraska, Bob Carey, asked, asked the the late Democratic senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Why are liberals so reluctant to consider changing Social Security so that it guaranteed wealth as well as income? His reply, it’s because they worry that wealth will turn Democrats into Republicans. This is this is all factual, people. Okay. All of this said all of this has happened. Now, again, time for the my jagged little pill, reality.

Check and you might upset people with this. you live in the United States of America. You’re a citizen of the United States of America. And I’m I’m always kind of amused by people with freedom and Fourth of July and flags, and a lot of these people they don’t really want to be free. They don’t want to be self-reliant. We always talk about that American spirit and self-reliance.

self-reliance is not relying upon others for anything. And that that includes retirement. That includes retirement. you need to save, you need to put money away, you need to take care of yourself. I said that that’s when you you when you own up to everything in life and you assume responsibility for everything in life, that that’s a what a true adult does.

You know, people are getting angry about what’s happening with Social Security and it’s gonna be cut, and they think that they’re entitled to it. I put my y you’re not entitled to anything. You have to take care of yourself, people. You cannot rely upon all of these, you know, the things that there’s so many issues that are out there.

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when it comes to this. But if all you have to do is just be personally responsible. And yes, it it involves, you know, the old, you know, ant the grasshopper thing. It it it involves you saving and putting money away and delayed gratification.

What am I gonna do? I didn’t know. I didn’t say I what do you want me to tell you, people? Okay. Whenever we talk about little things like could have been handled years ago, I’ve I’ve mentioned here people flip out. even Trump now. we’re not raising a Social Security retirement age. Listen, the demographics are different here.

In this country, people are living longer and healthier lives. I I I’ve come up with solutions here on the program. I understand that certain jobs are much more difficult physically on others, and people can’t work as long. You know, as far as a means test is concerned, I would code certain jobs saying, Hey, listen, you know, you’re a roof or whatever it may be. You you you you basically come up with a point system that can allow that where you can retire a little bit earlier.

But for other people, I’m sorry. You know, you you you’re working for the the government or you work you got a your desk job or your school tea school teachers I I I know it’s tough, but then you can go out and you can do something else.

The numbers don’t work anymore.

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Yeah, you can’t three decades of retirement and that that’s the reality. And people again, the you look at the mortality, the people are living longer and healthy lives. You take care of yourself. How can you expect your fellow taxpayer to take care of this? The numbers have always not worked. It’s always been a scam. Plus, you take a look at the amount of money you’re getting, it’s really nothing at all, quite frankly.

I don’t know, like I said, these are things that are very, very difficult for people to swallow. But it’s nothing new. I’ve been talking about this for decades.

You can’t just wish it away.

The idea that you’re gonna you’re gonna go to, and again, this is what I’m hearing this from people. I’m like, shame on you. Well, we’re just gonna have to tax, you know, raise the taxes on you know on this. What? So you’re gonna you’re gonna you’re gonna crush the youth of this country again? You already put us, put them forty trillion dollars in debt, and you’re gonna go after and hit them again? I’m sorry. You’re gonna have to go get a job.

And I’ve seen this happen before. Okay. This has happened. Happened in Europe after the the European financial crisis, 2010. People’s pensions got cut. They their system was, I mean, even worse. I mean, you had certain jobs. I remember making fun of this in you know, Greece, for example. If you were a hairdresser because you worked with chemicals, your job was considered to be, you know, hazardous.

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And you can retire at like 50 years old and they were getting full pensions. That went away. It was a reality check. Well, everybody, you’re gonna get smacked upside the head with reality check. Okay. We can help you. But again, I I’m I’m not a magician. Okay. You’re gonna have to put the work in. You’re gonna have to make some changes. Okay. I’m telling you what is going to happen. You want to ignore it? Fine.

You all hope and pray that, you know, it’s gonna be some magic bullet that’s gonna save this thing. Okay. It’s not coming.

For crying out loud, you can’t even get people in Washington, D.C. to even talk about it. They’re la la la la la la. Don’t even ignore this. This should be major news. It’s not. It’s not. I’m telling you. I’m telling you so you can be ready. I’m telling you so you can be prepared. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.