"As for the 63-year-old Stein, he has no plans to retire."

whirr said:"As for the 63-year-old Stein, he has no plans to retire."

That's Ben Stein's age, not Yarrow's. It doesn't matter his age though. To say that it's "unpatriotic" to work your ass off in order to retire early and enjoy the rest of your life doing what you want to do before you get too old/tired to do it is asinine.

The sooner you retire, the sooner someone else replaces you in the workforce. By staying employed, you're heartlessly preventing another human being from making a living. THAT'S unpatriotic.

whirr said:"As for the 63-year-old Stein, he has no plans to retire."

I've read some of the garbage he writes. I think he is doing society a disservice by not retiring.

From the article:

"...Back in 1935, when Congress passed the Social Security Act, the average U.S. life expectancy was 63, according to Yarrow. Today, the average life expectancy is 78, and if you make it through your 50s, you're likely to live into your 80s or beyond..."

Index the age for receiving full social security retirement benefits to the average U.S. life expectancy, which seems to have been (approximately) the de facto intent of the program, as originally conceived.

Cavendish said:From the article:
"...Back in 1935, when Congress passed the Social Security Act, the average U.S. life expectancy was 63, according to Yarrow. Today, the average life expectancy is 78, and if you make it through your 50s, you're likely to live into your 80s or beyond..."
Index the age for receiving full social security retirement benefits to the average U.S. life expectancy, which seems to have been (approximately) the de facto intent of the program, as originally conceived.The original intent was to reduce the number of older people starving to death due to Depression-related loss of savings, farms, homes, etc..

The ratio of people paying in to the people receiving benefits back then was 150:1. Now it's about 3 workers to every recipient and within a dozen years the ratio will have dropped to 2:1.

The contribution rate has grown from 2% of wages to 15.3%.

The original intent was not to encourage people to rely on the federal government to fund their retirement - which unfortunately is the current status for way too many people.

The intent was to fix a short-term problem, until people could get back to doing what they had always done, which was to provide for their own retirement.

At the end of WWII, when the Depression was passing into history and the economy roaring ahead for the next several decades, Social Security should have been phased out. That's the problem with entitlement programs - they become the new basis on which we set our expectations, and it's very difficult to get rid of them. Where is our exit strategy for Social Security?

ganda said:I retired at 33 so according to that twit I must be some sort of cheese-eating surrender Commie. What a bunch of nonsense.

Not to pry, but what do you do with all your spare time since you're fairly young?

oldschl said:RushnRockt said:oldschl said:Sounds to me like socialism. What happened to individual freedoms?

Err.. what? The guy is asking people to work longer, that in itself has nothing to do with socialism.

The point he's making is that your own decisions should be dictated by the greater good of society. Your own thoughts and feelings, your well-being isn't relevant if society isn't served. That is socialism.

Socialism in and of itself at its base does not care about "society's good" any more than does capitalism. It's a system of ownership and distribution, just like capitalism. Neither one in its economic sense has the "greater" good as a concept. If you want to throw out a political affiliation, calling him Marxist would be closer to truth.

Writer's request can make sense from "selfish" point of view as well. If the government systems that will support baby boomers collapse before baby boomers die, they lose out. Therefore, it is in their self-interest to make sure that the systems have enough money (and they themselves have enough money) to make sure that any collapse happens after they die. Totally selfish, not caring about society's good at all and yet you can make the same request.

NukeMedDude said:ganda said:I retired at 33 so according to that twit I must be some sort of cheese-eating surrender Commie. What a bunch of nonsense.

Not to pry, but what do you do with all your spare time since you're fairly young?

The flippant answer is "whatever I want"

I guess I do things that most salaried people pay others to do - I maintain my own property, cook from scratch most of the time, etc etc. It takes half a day to cut the grass - if I was working I'd certainly pay someone else to do that, for example.

Wifey retired at 32 the same time as I did - so I enjoy her company a lot more than I used to be able to We do a little eBaying but try not to do it too much (don't want it to be like a job or anything).