On the topic of the Federal Social Security Retirement Program...

January 05, 2024

Dear Mom:

As you know, I am interested in issues as discussed in public affairs media.

One issue that is discussed perennially is Social Security, as well as its desirability and survivability.

Related to Social Security are cash welfare, and disability cash payments. Also, there are the mysterious (?) food stamps, public housing, public healthcare programs.

Now, I watch and listen to Social Security being discussed in the media, and I find that they (politicians, politicos, and journalists) dumb things down and obfuscate thing, sometimes subtly.

I have been trying to get beyond the Big Lie to the bigger picture, and maybe I am succeeding sometimes.

How about yourself?

Plus, you are reading a lot, too.

The secret to Social Security, as you probably know, is that it is not the Real Issue and been superseded in most all ways in the context of the general welfare state of the Great Society.

There is another Nixon era cash program: Supplimental Security Income (or SSI). Also, there are Federal and state standard deductions, even packaged into Earned Income Tax Credits. And there is TANF.

Things could be worse: six or half a dozen, it taketh, and it giveth.

And there is always something on TV to watch, almost for free.

Now, why is Social Security perennially in the media, sounding controversial?

The coverage is Institutional Revolution agitprop and ISLM thought control mostly, I think, to motivate current and potential workforce participants.

People in the media make licentious statements. "The [top hat] rich want to steal our hard-earned pensions." "The rich won't pay their fair share." "The [sacred third rail] Social Security program is critical to our way of life--even though it is unfair and regressive."

There are ways of seeing Social Security more clearly in the context of a carefully and centrally managed society and economy, that does not give self-destination or predictability to the little guys or total freedom from anxiety.

Am I jumping topic-wise around too much?

Without Social Security, gran and gramps won’t starve much more quickly, and even with it, they may well starve slowly. There is a general process of planned obsolescence and withering away. There are still assignment and biomedical guinea pig slots.

But the Social Security apparatus—as I said above—is not primarily for providing pensioners with income and necessities, nor is it pensioners’ primary source of income and necessities—this being public goods and services, and other welfare programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and housing subsidies.

Some argue that retirement planning should center on personal saving, hard work, and frugality, not on Social Security. This ideology works well for ISLM workforce management and motivation propaganda purposes. However, real-world personal saving is really discouraged as it should be—especially for prols.

So, to conclude, do we need to save Social Security? No, but we probably want to, only in constantly politically contested and changing forms that are never really intended to provide pensioners with a long-term retirement way of life, especially after catastrophic disability (usually manufactured) sets in. That would be seriously decadent!

-jason- 2023-12-25