What history is that? The history that has shows the % of seniors living in poverty consistently decrease over time? It's half of what it was 40 years ago.

The history of the human race suggests that "letting" these people live in abject poverty will result in their "letting" a bunch of government buildings explode, whereas paying them the Social Security we owe them will not.

Old people are not violent. No violent episode in history was committed by 70yos.

The downstream effects on consumer spending would absolutely result in this being fixed. The alternative is large numbers of people going bankrupt and that's going to hit several sacred cows in this country, particularly housing. There's lots of reasons that I'm damn near convinced that SS will still be around, principally that the gap is actually not that bad if it's dealt with in advance so that the trust funds can take advantage of compounding interest. But even absent that, the fact that corporate america is going to be Victim #2 almost guarantees a fix.

> sacred cows in this country, particularly housing

That sacred cow needs to be slaughtered, the sooner the better, and its flesh distributed.