I don’t understand your intended insult. The rest seems fair enough.

 

Insult withdrawn.

 

" I have never understood why it is "Greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take someone else's money."

Written by Thomas Sowell who was born into poverty and orphaned as a young child raised by an aunt in Harlem.

 

I don’t believe that it’s greed to keep what you have earned. However, our society (maybe not everyone) has decided that a social safety net is a moral imperative. Much like how roads are an economic imperative. The government that we have voted for has decided that the moral imperative will be funded by a tax on wages. Each of us gets to vote for or against that every two years.

 

Might want to reconsider voting. For everything, really. Your vote does NOT make a difference. (Other actions..maybe, but probably not)

Might I suggest the book "The Populist Delusion" by Neema Parvini?

Populism is the great delusion. Pilots are at a certain IQ; they should know better.

https://www.amazon.com/Populist-Delu.../dp/1922602442

 

[Mod input] this discussion is one the verge of going partisan. Please have those conversations elsewhere. Let’s move on.

 

Thanks for the book recommendation. It looks like a good read.

 

Everyone realizes the pseudo insurance component of SS and by its nature some of what’s paid towards it goes to truly disabled people, orphaned minors, small death benefits (I actually think that should be raised somewhat) etc. Everyone realizes that there is some portion of SS that goes towards things like that and we won’t get back directly.

But when SS has not only vaguely promised, but directly stated, that when you reach these ages at these contribution levels for this many years, this is your benefit…they dam well better pay it. Especially when even if we get 100% of what we were told we’d be getting, we’re still getting much, much less than we put into it by any reasonable measure. I don’t mean if it was all in SPY or anything like that. Even a money market/high yield savings/CD ladder type vehicle would absolutely crush current promised projections while self providing more excess to use for the insurance products it provides. Instead it’s treated like a budgetary piggy bank (by both parties) and a social engineering vote harvesting slush fund. Alexis de Tocqueville was right when he said “the American Republic will endure until the day congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

The “rich” airline pilots among us (including the great many “bootstrap captains”…not sure why you would find that in any way upsetting especially when it’s true) will have paid far more into SS than they will receive already. They have already vastly over paid for their promised benefit that the gov has fancifully produced on “statements” for them for half a century (including much lower bootstrap earning years or even decades for those few among us that aren’t undeserving trust fund babies, etc). IOW, we’ve already way, way over paid, easily enough to cover the insurance products as well as the reverse progressive bottom heavy distribution schedule of benefits based on payouts.

We have already way over paid. Cutting benefits even though “means testing” is morally wrong as well as politically unviable in anything less than a Maoist revolution and hopefully that never happens here. No one is objected to shoring it up, but that must come with a mea culpa from both political braintrusts that they lied and wasted it along with reforms to truly stop fraud (throughout the whole of government and yes that includes the pentagon and European military welfare). We can slightly raise the retirement age for younger workers to preserve it for them, as has been done several times in the past for current workers. We can slightly increase the cap on income eligible to be taxed for SS while less slightly increasing benefits for those paying the increased tax. IMO that’s much less unfair and would go a long way towards fixing it. The rest, if needed, can be plugged with tariff revenue.

All those “bootstrap captains” (of which I am but one of and I’m proud of where I’ve came from and how far I’ve made it) who complain to you about how hard it is to find a good Porsche mechanic, Porsche (along with most other European brands) have been enjoying around 2% tariffs for generations while American cars in Europe have been paying 5X that much with far more costly import restrictions beyond their tariffs. Shouldn’t those “rich” pilots be made to pay the same tariff that the offending country has been charging us for generations? Especially while we’ve been footing a disproportionate amount of their defense spending for 80+ years?

As for their struggle to find a good mechanic, maybe they should have sent their kids to work at a VW dealership, then ASE school then help them with their resume to get hired by a Porsche dealer to get that experience while studying LLC laws in their state to eventually open their own Indy mechanic shop instead of a 100-250k all expenses paid college “experience” with a degree in nothing anyone will pay them for.

SS is a third rail and means testing to reduce its benefits simply because someone is deemed “rich” is a political non starter. There are other ways to address its impending shortfalls that don’t involve after the fact class warfare theft of a lifetime paid into benefit.

 

Cool…………….

 

Im not saying this is wrong but it does not matter. Pragmatism will win the day and means testing will eventually be needed. I don’t think being an ASE mechanic will work for the masses as a way to earn 250K. A more practical route would be a life long progression in education to achieve in a chosen field. That starts with a bachelors degree. Embry Riddle is making those people and in their 20s. Airline pilot as of now is still one of the best gigs and competitively requires a degree even if it is a liberal arts basket weaving theory for the modern age major.