From 1935, FDR speaks of the Social Security program he is enacting.

[madfloridian]

Run time: 01:49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ8N2S3c1f0   Posted on YouTube: September 26, 2006 By YouTube Member: UniversalNewsreels Views on YouTube: 15820   Posted on DU: December 01, 2006 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 680

 
That is the very same Social Security program that conservatives want to do away with. The country was coming out of the Great Depression. If you don't know about it, look it up. It came to a head in 1929 when the market crashed.

This is the program many of our Democrats are going to go along with privatizing, though they are using fancy words to cover up their motives.

Old footage, but important today.

[aaronbees]

1. Now that's a real president

who understands the value of doing things for the people and the real work of government. He leaves Dimson, and those who'd so willingly destroy the social safety net, in shambles. Thanks for posting -- a great reminder of what this country's about.

[Warpy]

2. My pop said he remembered when Social Security came in

and he said he heard every single year since 1935 that it was going broke, that they'd have to raise eligibility age and reduce benefits to keep it going, that it was a Ponzi scheme, that his money would be better off in the stock market than supporting all those old folks who'd already spent 40+ years working hard to keep this country going, and that it wouldn't be there when it came time for him to stop working.

He said he'd heard it all and come to the conclusion that anybody who talked about changing it was completely full of shit and not looking out for any of the suckers who elected him.

We also have the experience of countries that have experimented with investing THEIR social security systems in the stock market, and that HAS turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, that benefits have dropped and retirement ages increased, and that the benefits for newly retired workers probably won't be there any more.

There is a good reason Social Security "reform" is called "the third rail of politics." Social Security has worked well for 71 years, was set up to work well in the future, and is one of the few retirement securities that we peons have for ourselves.

Blame Reagan for making an artificial crisis for using it to create a back door income tax increase on the poorest workers by raising the deduction SIX TIMES and then putting the enormous overpayment into the general fund. The crisis will be that we may eventually need the whole payment to support the old folks (although even that isn't sure), and the pigs in Congress in both parties will no longer be able to hide the disaster their tax cuts to favored donors and GOP blanket tax cuts for the richest have been for the treasury.

In any case, if somebody from ANY party comes around preaching "reform," bring out the tar, feathers and rail. He deserves no less.

[madfloridian]

3. Amen Amen...your pop and I would totally agree.

There was an editorial in our paper saying people were only saving about an average of 50,000 for retirement...shame on them.

It made me furious. I believe a guy on AAR this week said incomes were down 3% from 2000. How the heck do you pay all the huge insurance increases, medical costs, house insurance and taxes that are doubling tripling.....and save a lot of money?

They don't want a middle class. Heck, they don't even care if the poor to survive.

[Warpy]

4. I've been told my whole life that I should have started saving

$2,000.00 a year when I was twenty.

When I was twenty, I earned barely over $2,500.00 a year. I'm wondering what I should have lived on, let alone paid my taxes out of, to save that kind of money.

I guess economics geniuses can't add, subtract, multiply, or divide.