What is DESTROYING Social Security?

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Social Insecurity and the Accelerating Detonator actually combined two titles of columns that I wrote one back in March 2005, another one April of 2012. And actually, I can go back to the 1990s and pull up some stuff as well. We’re writing about it. Well, the reason why I’m bringing this up is yesterday and unfortunately,

Probably didn’t hear about this. These important stories really never really make the news. Got more important things going on like sharks swimming off the coast of Florida. You had the head actuaries for Social Security and Medicare House panel talking about what they see happening down the road. And well, it’s going to be the trust fund, the lockbox, remember Al Gore’s lockbox?

is expected to be depleted by 2033 when 79 % of scheduled benefits would be payable. Well, based upon if you got an average $1 ,900 average monthly benefit, that’s of as of January 2024. The cuts are going to be about you have a $325 less a month $3 ,900 a year. That’s as it stands right now.

That’s coming soon to everyone collecting social security. We told you this was gonna happen. I warned my generation back in the 1990s, and this is what we were telling our clients back then. Don’t plan on getting social security if you get it. Congratulations. Think of it as a bonus.

I know this may upset you, it may aggravate you. Just again, your payroll tax, your FICA tax that they’ve been telling you that they’re putting away from you. Nah, nah, it’s just a tax. It’s just a tax. The money comes into the federal government, it goes out. Just like your income tax. Any other tax comes in, goes out the door. They don’t separate it.

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That money is not put with the goblins from Harry Potter’s Gringotts Bank and put somewhere. I know you can go online, you can look at your social security account and it’ll tell you what you’re gonna get at certain ages. Cracks me up. Cracks me up what they say that I’m gonna get. I laugh. I laugh like that money’s actually there. And again, there’s a little bit of fine print.

that’s there that’s saying unless changes are made and politicians decide to do something, these numbers might not be accurate. Anyway, let’s go to the way back machine. Let’s go back some almost 20 years now. I wrote about this and I put it this way. So you’re 20 years old, 20 years old. You’re about to take your first job, post -collegiate job and you’re watching a football game on a Sunday afternoon. All of a sudden,

knock on your door, knock on your door, you go to the door, open it up. And here come out, you know, this big lanky gentleman, he’s got gray hair, long beard, and he’s holding a briefcase and he says, hi, my name’s Sam. And I’m from the Big Gov investment firm and I’m here to start your special Big Gov retirement plan. Hey, Sam, you know, I’m not really interested in what you’re selling right now. And you try to close the door and Sam kicks the door and.

kind of scares the hell out of you at some degree. Look straight in the eye and says, my friend, you don’t have a choice. Social Security for all intents and purposes is a Ponzi scheme. It is money comes in, money goes out. Just that simple. Less people are paying into the system, more money is going out the door. What’s the difference between what that

That system and what Bernie Madoff does or other con artists do, nothing, just size, quite frankly. If I were to basically present the same investment plan to my clients, I’d go to jail. I’d go to jail. And another thing, okay, and this is a fact that is ignored, is ignored. This is how social security, they’re able to keep it off the books as far as accounting is concerned.

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Benefits are not guaranteed. Benefits are not guaranteed. There were two Supreme Court cases that ruled that individuals have no legal claim to Social Security, meaning what? Congress can reduce Social Security benefits at any time. Anytime they can raise a retirement age, they can do whatever they want, okay? You have no legal right to it. Ken?

You know, even you go back to when Social Security was started here and we’ll go Roosevelt here, 1930s. The demographics of our nation allowed this Ponzi scheme to work for an extended period of time. In the 1930s, there were 41 workers for every one retiree. The payroll tax.

Where we at 12 .4 right now between employee and employer was 2 % back then and only on the first $3 ,000 of earnings.

Okay, that was a great deal. Great. I was a great deal if you were retiring in the 1940s because the return on the money that you were having coming out of your paycheck was about 114%. The return that you’re getting on your your your 12 .4 right now is less than two. Less than 2 % rate of return. Even Roosevelt again, they don’t tell you this January 17 1935.

and addressed to Congress, Roosevelt saw, he foresaw the necessity to change the pay as you go system, the scheme of social security. He stated that for perhaps 30 years to come, 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 what he called voluntary contributory newties by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age.

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He was basically talking about the need to update, change the social security system around 1965 to personal accounts. Listen, again, I actually made fun of social security in this thing. I actually kind of forgot about that from the movie Dumb and Dumber when Harry and Lloyd took the money out of the, that they could never afford to pay back out of the suitcase. They would stick IOUs into it. And that’s basically what Al Gore’s,

lockbox is. You know, I wrote this column and it was supposed to expire in what they say to what 36 2036 it’s now down to 2033. I wrote a piece in April of 2012 basically saying it’s like an accelerating detonator. Say you know you’re watching you know like a MacGyver or something like that and somebody go messing around with a

a bomb and a timer and then all of a sudden the timer starts going faster. That’s what we’re dealing with at this point in time. It is the reality of our terrain. Now, why will this not be dealt with? I know why they’re not talking about this in the news. You got both political candidates that are just punting on the issue. They have no interest in talking about it. None whatsoever. Again, not a good sign for our nation, quite frankly. You take a look at republics that were…

enormously successful for a period of time before they went to Spodek. We use Rome for an example. They had a focus on the long term, the long run. Not us, not us. It’s the next election cycle. Those are the people, those are the unserious people that we continue to put into office, completely unwilling to tackle problems down the road. It’s also some of the same things that we see in everyday life.

You know, sometimes you see what COs are corporations. Got to worry about next quarter’s earnings rather than what’s going to happen five, 10, 20 years down the road. You can guess what we do at Markowski Investments, the complete opposite of this. But again, there’s your social insecurity and your accelerating detonator. Watchdog on wallstreet .com.