Readers Write: Time to priviatize a ‘gutted’ Social Security

The Island Now

I am writing a response to an article in the Feb. 5, 2016 edition of the Roslyn Times.  The article was written by Mr. Charles Samek.

The gist of the letter is regarding the letter writer’s preference for a single-payer medical system.

I am not going speak to that issue at this time.  

Instead, I have to bring attention to one particular paragraph that has to be amongst the most uninformed, financially illiterate statements I have ever read.  

I am referring to the paragraph which stated that “There is also the drive to privatize Social Security and we know darn well that the greedy would gut it.”  

Now, I do not know if Mr. Samek has been going through life with both oars in the water, but I must unhappily inform him that the Social Security fund has already been gutted.  

It has been gutted by Congress ever since it was created in 1935.  

It was a fraudulent political hustle, a Ponzi scheme, from the get go; although it sounded nicer when they called it “pay as you go.”  

All my FICA contributions over the last 40 years were not saved and invested for my future “security.”  

It was spent, gutted, and stolen by the U.S. government.  

The only reason I now receive Social Security checks is they are getting some poor sucker in the generation after me to cover the payments. 

They will have to find another poor sucker in the generation after him the keep this criminal scheme going.  And it is criminal.  

If a private corporation ever handled their employee retirement funds like this, the corporate officers would be incarcerated.

How would privatizing work?  

Yes, the dreaded privatizing that Mr. Samek abhors.  It would work like my IRA works.  

I make contributions to an account which actually says f/b/o Wayne Roth.  

I can place that account with any financial institution I wish.  I can choose the investments I wish.  

Over the last few decades, it has grown very nicely.  

My rate of return is very satisfactory, more satisfactory than the absolutely pathetic monthly check I get from the Social Security administration for my decades of contributions to the system.  

Stop the gutting of the Social Security system and privatize it!

Dr. Wayne Roth

Roslyn Heights

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