Your key point - that reform must come from a bottom-up, grassroots movement - is worth emphasizing. The "grass-roots principle" applies to most economic challenges today. This quote from Ben Hunt (Epsilon Theorry) says it well (with some reservations about his use of "tribe").
"Like everything else worth saving from this idiotic period in history, the solution will not come from the top down. It will come from the bottom up. Not by trying to convince the tribalists that they’re corrupting or conflating a good thing with their tribal aims, but by forging a new tribe built around the ideas worth saving."
You and I know how vitally important it is to get off of Social Security, the sooner the better. Unfortunately, the problem is far more fundamental than just getting off social security, and that makes an intractable problem all the more impossible to solve. The fundamental problem underlying all of our problems, including social security, is an inability by all but a small percentage of people to conceptualize and integrate the facts of the world around them. When even our leaders, the supposedly best and brightest among us, can't understand the train wreck looming in front of us. Or worse, if they do understand it, but are willing to ignore it to win an election that keeps them in power for at most 6 more years, imagine how little the vast majority of the population understands about the problem. You and I again understand that the reason for this inability to think is a government education system that has purposely taught people how not to think for many decades. We have two hopes for averting the coming financial disaster - one if some leader is confident and strong enough to be able to explain the problem and advocate for the proper solution to a population that still must rely on it's conceptual faculty no matter how stunted, or - two, if the education system can be reformed enough to start producing thinking human beings again. You are, admirably, trying to provide the former though without the celebrity or platform to accomplish it. I don't see any such figure on the horizon in the next ten years though we could get lucky. Unfortunately, even though there are many good signs in education right now it would still take at least 20 years before even a dent could be made in the fundamental problem. The only real question right now is how much we can mitigate the coming disaster, and whether it will be bad enough to completely destroy the fabric of American society, which is to say the American experiment in freedom and self-government. The only good news for me is I probably won't live long enough to see it, but if I'm lucky (and we are all lucky) maybe I will be able to see the American renaissance because of people like you.
I long ago declared in public that I would be satisfied with free-and-clear title (including water and mineral rights) to at least one acre of decent Federally-owned land here in California (State of my birth, current home, and State of residence for all but two of my 65+ years), in exchange for ALL claims against Social Security and Medicare, and I lent my support to political candidates who advocated selling or exchanging excess Federal real-estate in order to fulfill the promise of those programs, while phasing them out for younger generations. There weren't many such candidates -- mostly Libertarian -- and SS/Medicare insolvency seemed very far off, back then. Now, I am eligible for SS and on Medicare, but only since very recently. I still think the deal I proposed was a good one, and I would still take it. I'm not greedy. Basically, I just want to get out of the system what my employers and I paid into it and no more; getting fair interest on that sum prorated over the years I paid in would be icing on the cake. To be honest, I don't want the government to have to borrow to pay me off, so would prefer the real-estate option. How about it, Uncle Sam?
Your key point - that reform must come from a bottom-up, grassroots movement - is worth emphasizing. The "grass-roots principle" applies to most economic challenges today. This quote from Ben Hunt (Epsilon Theorry) says it well (with some reservations about his use of "tribe").
"Like everything else worth saving from this idiotic period in history, the solution will not come from the top down. It will come from the bottom up. Not by trying to convince the tribalists that they’re corrupting or conflating a good thing with their tribal aims, but by forging a new tribe built around the ideas worth saving."
Anders,
You and I know how vitally important it is to get off of Social Security, the sooner the better. Unfortunately, the problem is far more fundamental than just getting off social security, and that makes an intractable problem all the more impossible to solve. The fundamental problem underlying all of our problems, including social security, is an inability by all but a small percentage of people to conceptualize and integrate the facts of the world around them. When even our leaders, the supposedly best and brightest among us, can't understand the train wreck looming in front of us. Or worse, if they do understand it, but are willing to ignore it to win an election that keeps them in power for at most 6 more years, imagine how little the vast majority of the population understands about the problem. You and I again understand that the reason for this inability to think is a government education system that has purposely taught people how not to think for many decades. We have two hopes for averting the coming financial disaster - one if some leader is confident and strong enough to be able to explain the problem and advocate for the proper solution to a population that still must rely on it's conceptual faculty no matter how stunted, or - two, if the education system can be reformed enough to start producing thinking human beings again. You are, admirably, trying to provide the former though without the celebrity or platform to accomplish it. I don't see any such figure on the horizon in the next ten years though we could get lucky. Unfortunately, even though there are many good signs in education right now it would still take at least 20 years before even a dent could be made in the fundamental problem. The only real question right now is how much we can mitigate the coming disaster, and whether it will be bad enough to completely destroy the fabric of American society, which is to say the American experiment in freedom and self-government. The only good news for me is I probably won't live long enough to see it, but if I'm lucky (and we are all lucky) maybe I will be able to see the American renaissance because of people like you.
I long ago declared in public that I would be satisfied with free-and-clear title (including water and mineral rights) to at least one acre of decent Federally-owned land here in California (State of my birth, current home, and State of residence for all but two of my 65+ years), in exchange for ALL claims against Social Security and Medicare, and I lent my support to political candidates who advocated selling or exchanging excess Federal real-estate in order to fulfill the promise of those programs, while phasing them out for younger generations. There weren't many such candidates -- mostly Libertarian -- and SS/Medicare insolvency seemed very far off, back then. Now, I am eligible for SS and on Medicare, but only since very recently. I still think the deal I proposed was a good one, and I would still take it. I'm not greedy. Basically, I just want to get out of the system what my employers and I paid into it and no more; getting fair interest on that sum prorated over the years I paid in would be icing on the cake. To be honest, I don't want the government to have to borrow to pay me off, so would prefer the real-estate option. How about it, Uncle Sam?
What IS the SOTU?