In reality, social security very likely WILL be there. But fostering cynicism about it is a prerequisite towards imagining it won't be, which makes it (theoretically) easier to dismantle. "Well it's in poor shape anyway, we should just blow it up..."

There are good informative comments below that are being downvoted, that are about how social security actually works. You just can't seem to avoid political crap here.

There is plenty of good information out there on various easy, non-disturbing ways to tweak social security if necessary. Google some of the ole trustee reports or publications by the late Bob Ball.

Your response is engaging in "political crap" by providing no evidence besides name-calling. For some actual proof of the Social Security situation, here's the SSA report [1] explaining how its Trust Fund will run out in 2035. So yes, Social Security will still exist, but it will rely on short-term funding rather than a big account. That's fine in theory, provided the budget is there. (It likely will be; I imagine the politicians will cut military funding before they hurt SS!)

[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/collapsing-pensions-will-f...

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html

For current or future recipients of said benefits, the answer is pretty clear : yes.

And, frankly, the government has promised these people compensation in terms of years or work, and amounts of income after those years of work. It should be illegal to make these claims. (and for the private sector, it mostly is, so frankly these laws are letting government lie on compensation letter, which is low, dishonest)

Pensions in this country have made unrealistic assumptions for years.

Just google it. Here’s one for you from the Brits, so no right/left anything: https://www.ft.com/content/456172b4-6b11-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a...

And here’s another: http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/dallas-county/retired-dallas-...

And another: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...

And another: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth...

And another: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/decennial-commission-seeks-aid-n...

Do I need to continue? I will if you continue on your asinine positions that pensions are just fine in this country. So the idea that Social Security has issues is quite well founded.

And if social security doesn’t pay out, politicians on both sides will be to blame for kicking the can down the road.

Under Federal law and under many state constitutions, vested benefits under state and municipal employee pension plans are a property right, and cannot be reduced unilaterally (depending on the theory, either because of the Takings Clause or Contracts Clause of the Federal constitution). And because, unlike private pensions and the USPS, Federal law doesn't require state or municipal governments to fully fund liabilities as they accrue, these particular pensions have turned into a disaster.

But Social Security was designed and intended at its very inception to require adjustment to both benefits and retirement age.[1] It's not a form of deferred compensation or other property right. So retirement age and benefits can and has and _will_ be adjusted to keep it solvent.

More over, Social Security was never designed to provide continuity of lifestyle, but rather to keep the elderly from starving and living homeless. All it has to do is provide as much as it can, no more or no less. It's a carefully designed social welfare program that is patterned after, but shouldn't be confused with, pensions and annuities.

The Social Security department has never made unrealistic assumptions, nor has Congress. The problem with Social Security is that there exists a political party that will cynically bemoan the pending collapse of Social Security while refusing to make the simple and obvious changes that were foreseen and expected of them 80 years ago and ever since.

[1] Actuarial tables back then were insanely accurate, and the bureaucrats who designed Social Security understand very well how things would play out. See this 1947 study, which also includes historical actuarial tables from the 1920s and earlier. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life39-41_acturial....

In particular, note (PDF) pages 14 and 18 where it discusses the trends in longevity. I've seen better historical papers to make my point but don't have the references on hand. But I think that document suffices to show how actuarial science was well developed back then. And it's also worth noting that Social Security came about before the post-WWII baby boom. Populations were understood to be able to grow and shrink. Social Security was never predicated on a steadily growing population.

People should worry about pensions because they won't fail, instead they'll be adjusted to become much less, both in terms of years (longer work) and in terms of benefits (which will be your only form of income for decades).

This makes me wonder, what, exactly, do you think "failure" means, to normal people, for their pension fund/social security/... ?

In my humble opinion, it is that they'll have to work longer and make more money themselves, after getting a pension. And for various other social security recipients it'll be analogous.

So your long comment essentially says "pensions won't fail, they'll fail !". (Or perhaps one could say that you're being extremely pedantic on the exact meaning of fail versus the common meaning of fail)

Obviously the claim made to the population by social security is that they'll receive benefits for a given period. You clearly agree that that promise is unsustainable, and fail/("will be adjusted").

So no, it’s not one party - it’s both. And that’s what the problem is.

If you want to criticize Democrats, they did choose to expand Medicaid and Medicare without a more comprehensive long-term financing plan. OTOH, unlike the GOP tax reform, these expansions were at least nominally revenue neutral thanks to some targeted tax increases, the insurance mandate, etc. Democrats may spend but they _tax_ and spend, which is better than spending or (as Republicans do) cut taxes and spend.

Republicans could come to the table and attempt to compromise with Democrats. Democrats would want to expand benefits. Republicans would like to cut them, at the very least, if not eliminate benefits or privatize the entire program. But compromise theoretically could be fairly easy. But Republicans are committed to a nihilistic "starve the beast" strategy. That's the crux of the problem. Republican ideology has become so extreme that compromise is literally anathema. It's no coincidence that old-school Republicans have been bowing out left-and-right.

I see similar trends happening on the left with an insistence on single-payer healthcare, but it's early and not even remotely comparable to where Republican politics is at.

Why are you talking about pensions? The subject was social security.

That’s not how Social Security works. For practical purposes, it’s pay-as-you-go system: http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/misleading-th.... As boomers retire, taxes will need to go up to account for the higher ratio of retirees to workers. But when the millenials retire, unless they end up having a substantially smaller generation after them, that strain will not be there.

The sooner we can have a society more like Star Trek's utopian future the better for anyone that wants to retire without being a burden on the current generation. (Even then, I don't think I'd ever want to /fully/ retire, I'd just like to focus on things I actually find fun and meaningful.)

The right wing frame is that the surplus "doesn't exist" or is full of "IOUs" or something. It's hogwash.

Here's how it really works. When Social Security is in surplus, more money comes in from payroll taxes than is paid out in benefits. Payroll taxes come from people who get W-2 income and pay FICA.

That surplus is then used as part of the general fund to pay for various things including thing like tax cuts for lower capital gains. In reality, the general deficit is larger, because the surplus money isn't allocated for those purposes - the surplus continues to exist to pay for social security when it goes into deficit.

If we then pretend that that surplus "isn't actually there", then it means that we've effectively used payroll taxes to fund tax cuts for people that are richer than the people who have paid their payroll taxes. It's a two-step con. It's also false.

Social Security has also transition from surplus to deficit and back to surplus in the past as well.

Other countries are already seeing this, but there is no escape from raising the retirement age, and the best way to slash benefits, which is to keep them behind real inflation. Also, medicare is an even bigger problem as it has no upper limit on spend, which will also have to be cut somehow.

Bottom line is, the more resources you spend on the past, such as aging people and infrastructure, the less you can on the future, such as for you and your kids. That is unavoidable.

I think the latest figures for the national debt are just shy of $14 trillion, of which about $3 trillion is owed to the Social Security trust funds.

Source: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.html

In FY2016, it ran a surplus of $23 billion. For FY2017 the surplus was $35 billion.

Stats here: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.html

1- taxes aren’t going up, even though Boomers have already begun to retire;

2- if Boomers live for a long time in retirement, everyone after them is hosed.

This isn't quite true.. In addition to the assets in the chart, the governemnt has about 8T in mortgages (out of 15T total outstanding) through several Government Sponsored Enterprises, like Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/mortouts...

The only difference is that the government took over the student loan market without creating a GSE to manage it.

The Fed's balance sheet on the other hand, now that makes the student debt load seem miniscule.

Failing government systems, check. Unaffordable educational system, check. Limited housing and land, check. Degrading climate, check.

Some days I believe I just may find a way out of it. But, for every day I participate in the rat race is just another lost when I should be working on building a better future for my family.

P.s. honestly, I don't understand how ppl who are so hoplessly indebted are not migrating here. Bulgaria offers very cheap life with the opportunity of doing business with the EU and the US. Why work 24/7 when you can enjoy a good life in a place where the local people and economy need a foreigner to lead them in the business and globalizing world?

Every election season, many people in the US say "If X is elected, I am moving to Canada." Then they check the immigration department website [1], realize it is going to take multiple years and thousands of dollars for them to navigate the immigration system, and even then there is a high likelihood of failure. So most promptly give up.

The bureaucratic difficulty of immigration is not the only issue dissuading potential immigrants. Language barrier, cultural differences, loss of one's professional network, the possibility that one's education and experience wouldn't be acceptable to the employers in the destination country, family and friends, etc. also play a role.

I am sure many consider moving to Easter Europe, but few end up going through with it.

[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/website-crash-immigration-tr...

tldr: There's more to the equation than finance.

- The overwhelming political nature of everything here. It is "free-market is the solution to everything or you're a socialist" mentality. The Moore race is a good example of this. The only thing worse than a Dem is a pedo. I'm moderate right, for reference. (maybe some of this is just the political climate of the times)

- Bible belt and churches around every corner. Religion is much more common place, and I definitely get weird looks if I mention that I don't go to church.

- Everyone is big. I mean the obesity thing here is common and I'm shocked at the amount of fast food and all meat diets people do. This can lead to some bland food, though there is also some really good food. Great BBQ here.

- There is much more casual racism here (I'm white, but it is enough that I notice it when I'm not looking for it). Lots of confederate war flags and for some reason people keep telling me that the civil war had nothing to do with slaves. I don't know why people keep bringing that up in discussions that it isn't related to. These things also pop up in the frequent political discussions that I can't seem to avoid.

- Finding friends is hard. Part of this is just moving to a new area, part of it is cultural differences. I expect this to be a challenge for anyone that is moving not into a big area or into a job/school that you have a lot of peers. You'd be surprised how many friends you have because you sit next to them for hours a day.

- Everyone is extremely nice. This isn't really a bad thing, but it is surprising. People will go out of their way to help you.

And there are just cultural norms and vernacular that are strange to me. I'm also in a small town, so that definitely plays a factor. But it isn't a hick town either. I can't escape the feeling that I'm a foreigner. And I think that feeling of being a foreigner is off-putting for a lot of people.

If the former is cultural shock, the latter is a multi-story Tesla Coil to the face :)

They say the confederate war flags are fine. Well, if it isn't racist to them, then it isn't racist to them. You won't fit in until you accept that. There are actually black people with that flag...

http://www.southernheritage411.com/hke.php?nw=006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8hPo6mYnks

Based on your non-southern culture, you're reading something into the actions of other people. You are using an incompatible cultural context to make judgements about other people. They aren't unaware of this, which is why it keeps popping up. You are giving off some sort of vibe, perhaps disgust, and they can see it. The only fix is to adopt the cultural definitions of those around you.

Racism in the south is more obvious than racism elsewhere, but not more common. All across the north and west you can find tokenism and low expectations.

The appearance that everything is political is partly just the times, but also partly because you were unaware of it in your former location. Political opinions in your former location were just the norm that you'd always known, so you didn't really see them. Now they stand out. To see the other side of this story, how things are in fact political outside of the south, read through this lawsuit: https://www.scribd.com/document/368688363/James-Damore-vs-Go...

I'm only back in the US now for a limited time. I've done the math and found that I need a few more years of work to live in Bulgaria full-time for the rest of my life.

I speak broken Bulgarian.

I say this as someone that had a wonderful trip there and like the country and people quite a lot.

It's a classic example of "worldly" Americans going to the Louvre and being "cultured" but not having the depth of understanding that Eastern Europe is a wonderful, beautiful place. It's just not as well-kept and poorer so they turn up their nose.

Failing government systems? Have always existed. Unaffordable education? Never went, no idea. Online education still free. Limited Housing and Land? Flyover country, tons of cheap housing and land. Degrading Climate? Yes. But even the most pessimistic projections are unlikely to effect my life.

Its a great time to be alive. Country not at war, unemployment is low, stock market doing amazing, crime is low, tons of new fields are emerging, sex is significantly easier to find then past generations, and the internet is still pretty great.

Although a still more pedantic person might point out that there was no formal declaration of war in Korea, so technically it's not a "war" (it was called a "police action").

I’m with that other commenter who suggested Eastern Europe is much more interesting.

I've found it pretty easy to get into a negative spiral when reading about all the shit going on. Our awareness of the myriad problems and the seeming political and cultural insurmountability of them don't do our minds any favors.

EDIT: being a little presumptive here, see below.

All of this is in addition to my 9-5.

What else should I be doing?

Also, I don't appreciate your presumption that I have a "defeatist" attitude just because I shared some of my honest thoughts. Next time ask.

I will say however that a lot of the issues you talk about are systemic and larger than what can be affected by local politics. Compositing programs won't address there are still large corporate farms out there that contribute the most to climate change. The same is true of recycling, being vegan or eating local, etc. A lot of change that needs to occur involves regulating large corporations.

It sounds like you're aware of this, but that's how you address the future. I think you agree.

EDIT: leaving my presumptive comment above unchanged so people reading won't be confused.

For example, If we as a society would stop buying cheap food, it would force the hand of these industrial operations to change their behavior.

So I'm taking the time I have now to learn and improve my mentoring and educational skills when working with the local community. In addition to regulation, I also think it's critical that sustainable change occurs from our within society.

While voting with your wallet and trying to be a conscientious consumer is great, the asymmetry between ad=hoc networks of consumers pursuing smarter more sustainable choices and people who are directly invested in selling crap fora quick buck is huge. Since the large industrial concerns can spend a fortune on advertising and demand creation how exactly are you going to 'force their hand'? So far evidence suggests they often just create an additional line of healthier-seeming products at a higher price point that can be marketed to your demographic segment.

Surely you have noticed that there are also people who systematically attempt to undermine such public education efforts. I think you might at least acknowledge their existence and the existence of advertising that attempts to bypass educational channels to sell crappy foods.

I don't agree. The Midwest is very affordable. Plenty of land. Remote work is a definite possibility.

https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climat...

FYI - I'm pretty sure central Minnesota is gonna be just fine.

"More heavy downpours may increase the likelihood of property damage, travel delays, and disruption in services. Sediment runoff and erosion may clog reservoirs and reduce storage capacity."

Erosion is harmful because the top six inches of the soil has the majority of microbial life that contribute to healthy soil. When their ecosystem is disturbed, it takes years for it to come back. No amount of fertilizer or additives will help in it's absense and only worsens the health of the soil.

"Midwestern agricultural lands make up two-thirds of the region's land area and produce 65% of the nation's corn and soybeans."

Corn and soybean production has historically used harmful chemicals and harmful farming practices. These techniques harm the microbial life in the top-soil in addition to other ecosystems.

Industrial farming practices are negatively impacting ecosystems such as insects, birds, and microbial soil life.

"In the long-term, climate impacts are likely to have increasingly detrimental effects that increase variability in crop and agricultural production"

When these crops start to die off, the soil is going to be exposed to severe weather conditions and will only make it worse for the microbial life to live. Healthy soil need's protection from UV, typically that's in the form of a mulch layer (leaves, twigs, bark, wood chips, plants, bushes, trees, etc...)

'Many tree species are expected to gradually shift their ranges northward."

The forest edge is Nature's sign of the best growing conditions. Tree's provide protection, energy, and food for top-soil. Without them, it will require significant energy and expense to simulate what they naturally provide.

It provide a healthy ability to save and access lasting economic mobility if that's the goal.

At the end of the day what you make doesn't matter, it's what you're able to keep and move forward (or stabilize with).

This is utterly short-sighted thinking.

We in Western nations are utterly privileged and blessed to live in today's world. Abundance of clothing! Abundance of food! Free and accessible plumbing! Clean drinking water! Travel anywhere you like for relatively cheap! You probably own a large climate-controlled contraption that can transport you long distances in a short amount of time! No epidemic diseases/plagues of yesteryear! No famines! The average lifespan is already 80+ years old and that number continues to increase.

The world we are heading to will likely continue to see advances in technology and medicine, leading to less suffering and healthier, longer lifespans. More resources too - there are fewer destitute poor today than at any other time in history.

Warren Buffet said that the moment one was born in the United States or another Western country, that person has essentially won a lottery. Puzhong Yao, a Chinese immigrant to the US put[0] it this way:

"If someone is born a U.S. citizen, he or she enjoys a huge advantage in almost every aspect of life, including expected wealth, education, health care, environment, safety, etc., when compared to someone born in developing countries. For someone foreign to “purchase” these privileges, the price tag at the moment is $1 million dollars (the rough value of the EB-5 investment visa). Even at this price level, the demand from certain countries routinely exceeds the annual allocated quota, resulting in long waiting times. In that sense, American citizens were born millionaires!"

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror blog expounded further[1]: "Being born today, rather than 50, 100, 200, 500 years ago is also effectively winning a lottery."

If you don't wish to have children for some reason, fine. But don't give us the foolish nonsense about refusing to bring up children in a terrible world. The world is the best it has ever been -- technologically, socially, medically, and probably morally -- and that trend is pointing in the right direction.

[0]: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/western-elite-chi...

[1]: https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/951212445426622464

You are right that we (at least in the First World) are standing at the pinnacle of human civilization. We have access to the knowledge of the whole world, going back throughout much of world history. We have science, medicine, technology that would dazzle our ancestors. All of the great things you talked about are true.

And yet...

I've seen the migration of the Monarch Butterfly. It's glorious, absolutely magical. Uncountable numbers of these gorgeous orange and black beauties fill the air, all fluttering together, all wobbling along in the same direction. It's impossible to describe the feeling of witnessing it, of being surrounded by an aerial sea of these soft gentle beautiful beings.

It doesn't happen anymore.

The Monarch population tanked a couple of years ago. Not enough milkweed for the caterpillars to eat. Too much land has been given over to human food production. People are planting milkweed in their gardens now, but who can say if the Monarchs will rebound?

Our food animals outweigh all other land mammals combined, by more than twenty times.[1]

All the glories of our Western civilization come from an extraordinarily wasteful system that is converting oil and natural biomass into humans and meat animals and trash. There are always trade-offs, and we may well be about to become victims of our own success.

I don't want to have to explain to my children what Monarch Butterflies were, what tigers and elephants were, what coral reefs were.

When the waters rise and billions of people have to move or die, I don't want my kids to have to deal with that.

I don't want them to suffer when the first genegineered virus sweeps through our cities.

I don't want them to be embedded in a technological panopticon that indelibly records their every movement and communication.

There are some serious problems that humanity is facing and I don't have the faith to create a new human being in light of them. And that's what it is: faith.

Dismissing these concerns as "foolish nonsense" is the "utterly short-sighted thinking" in my view.

No sir, I'll keep my kids safe in the Uncreate, at least until such time as things have settled.

"May you live in interesting times" is a curse, and I won't pronounce it on my own unborn offspring, thank you.

[1] > Our phytomass harvests go beyond the metabolic needs to secure raw materials (wood, fibers, pulp) and energy (fuelwood, charcoal, straw) whose inputs remain indispensable even in the age of metals, concrete, synthetics, and fossil fuels. The biosphere has paid a considerable price for these human gains as both its total stock of standing phytomass and its overall productivity have declined by significant margins. And because we are an omnivorous species we have also been harvesting a wide variety of zoomass by collecting and hunting animals as foragers and eventually also deliberately raising them as pastoralists and farmers. These actions have reduced the stocks of wild terrestrial and marine animals while massively expanding the stocks of cattle, water buffaloes, horses, camels, sheep, pigs, and poultry.

"Harvesting the Biosphere: The Human Impact" ~ Vaclav Smil http://www.vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/PDR37-4.Smil_.p...

If you are waiting for scary things to pass, you'll wait forever.

There will never be a perfect utopian time when the economy is running 100% efficiently, when humanity is in perfect harmony with nature, when there are zero threats of war, etc.

Your argument doesn't address this simple truth: there has never been a better time and place for humanity as now in first-world nations. It isn't perfect -- as you point out there are serious problems to tackle -- and yet, it's never been better.

The idea that civilization will die has been a remote possibility for virtually all of human history. That we should not have children because of this remote possibility is fear-driven foolishness.

If you don't want or can't have children, no judgment. But let's not claim the reason is because civilization is so terrible - when in fact it's the best it's ever been, especially in rich first-world nations of the West.

99% of the key to wealth is to live beneath your means. It's unglamorous advice, but it's absolutely effective.

"The Millionaire Next Door" should be required reading in high school. It has all you need to know about living below your means, building wealth slowly and consistently.

In 17 years* the Social Security system will probably have to cut benefits by 23% unless we either raise the retirement rate or raise the maximum salary at which you have to pay social security tax. The latter is a pretty painless thing to the average tax payer, who already has all their salary subject to social security tax.

The social security system was in much greater danger in the Reagan era, when they decided to make benefits taxable, which was ultimately a progressive way to reduce benefits.

*http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/13/news/economy/social-security...

Can anyone explain this to me?

Not saying I agree with it but that's my guess as to the reason.

Can you cite any sources on this? Im fairly certain it will not be completely out of money, but will be to a point where more money is going out than coming in.

"In the annual Trustees Report, projections are made under three alternative sets of economic and demographic assumptions. Under one of these sets (labeled "Low Cost") the trust funds remain solvent for the next 75 years. Under the other two sets (the "Intermediate" and "High Cost"), the trust funds become depleted within the next 20 years. The intermediate assumptions reflect the Trustees' best estimate of future experience.

Some benefits could be paid even if the trust funds are depleted. For example, under the intermediate assumptions, annual income to the trust funds is projected to equal about seventy-nine percent of program cost once the trust funds become depleted. If no legislation has been enacted to restore long-term solvency by that time, about three-quarters of scheduled benefits could be paid in each year."

As long as the government continues to exist and has the ability to tax, Social Security will be around.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/fundFAQ.html

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/solvency/index.html

How does this make economic sense? It reminds me of the deals home sellers would make to prop up their numbers in '06/'07.

Or at least, that's my guess.

I know home loan standards are pretty static, so I'd guess it's to allow indebted students to qualify.

We're the most educated in history, but many people decided to use that education to learn topics that aren't lucrative/in demand. Personal responsibility plays in a ton here, and some people made bad decisions. It's still simple/easy to get a good education at a state school, entirely paid for by loans, and come out with a degree that will allow you to pay those loans back in a few years. People who plan accordingly benefit in a HUGE way from the availability/accessibility of student loans, the barrier to entry is that much lower.

As far as SS goes, I'd be happy to see it fail but I'm also happy to keep paying into it without a guarantee of return in order to ensure my parents generation doesn't find themselves destitute. There are so many ways to plan for your future, having the government come in and force you to participate in SS is far from ideal. Not sure how my fellow Millennials feel about that, though...

If everyone studied computer science, every single one of our salaries (save for maybe the top 5% of us, in terms of skills and experience) would drop significantly.

I know the absurd stereotype is that millennials are going to college and studying feminist underwater basket weaving, but there are many, many students who are chasing the "hot" new fields, only to find that they weren't the only ones who had that brilliant idea at 18 years old.

P.S. Most of my friends grew up in families around the poverty line, so that'll affect my story.

I have friends with English degrees with no student loans that are happy. I have friends with English degrees with $150k in debt, not happy.

"Just get a degree" is bad advice. I know electricians that make more money than me, and work shorter hours. "Get a skill" is good advice, and college is only one way of doing that. But you can't dismiss personal responsibility when it comes to decision making, both good and bad.

I don't know what you do for a living, but I'm guessing it doesn't involve contorting yourself into a pretzel inside a hot attic and twisting wires together all day. Electricians work hard and come home sore.

Except everyone is constantly told they need to go to college by authority figures as they go through the education system. There's also responsibility that falls on employers demanding college degrees for jobs that in no way need them, e.g., secretary.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/education/edlife/stem-...

I wouldn't. If SS fails, there will be riots, if not armed uprisings in the streets.

People keep saying this as if it's true without citing anything regarding it. Is there any hard evidence this is true?

How we learned from history.