Reply #12: Call it a Pyramid scheme

[one-eyed fat man]

It has always depended on adding a new base of tax payers larger than the crop of retirees drawing out money. Baby boomers are not only the biggest chunk in the system, they did not have kids at anywhere near the rate their parents did.

Since the system takes in taxes which it immediately distributes as benefits collapse is inevitable. A couple decades ago maybe a half dozen workers chipped in their taxes to support one old geezer. Long before it gets to the point where the aging population and declining birth rates conspire so that every worker has their own personal geezer to support they will rebel.

You want to help reduce the liability facing Social Security, buy your grandmother two cartons of non-filter Camels a week. The sooner you can convince those old fart to die the less money you'll have to spend.