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Comment by thrower123 | Hacker News Reader

I'm planning that Social Security will either not exist or be so paltry as to be useless, and doing my retirement planning accordingly. It certainly wouldn't hurt my feelings any to be proved wrong, but I'm not depending on ever seeing a single red cent out of it.

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That all good and well for you. However, if you extend that attitude to say "and I'm not going to allow congress to properly fund social security as a result", then you are the problem.

And if they extend that attitude even further and overthrow the government, what then?

The parent poster's stance is the correct one to have: make no plans for SS to exist, so if it does, you're just in a little better shape than you expected.

Most people who post on HN will experience a negative ROI on the money they paid into SS, unless they live well into their 90s.

I don't really give a shit what they decide to do, and I realize that is a "Fuck you, got mine" kind of attitude. But the simple truth is that I can't afford to rely on the government or society to provide for my well-being; that's my own business, and it'd be irresponsible not to take care of it as best I can myself. I view it as an unacceptable risk to bet that Social Security will be managed well enough that there will be anything left when and if it ever comes my turn to get back some of what I've had to put in it.

If they want to tax me to pay for Social Security, then they will, and I don't really have much recourse. It does as much good to shake my fist at the weather as fuss about other things I can't control.

I vote to not pay into social security, let me manage my own money.

You can always vote with your feet if you feel like opportunities in the US don't justify the level of taxation.

There are jobs that you can take where you don't pay into nor receive ssn benefits.

that's fine but you shouldn't allow Congress to mess it up completely as some ideologues want to do.

Congress didn't mess it up, economic reality and math did. It never should have been designed to rely on population and productivity growth.

They could make adjustments to the retirement age or benefits that are in line with funding. Or change the funding to be in line with the promised benefits. Instead they choose to underfund and let the next generation deal with it.

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