Rather than ask people to sacrifice in the name of social security we should let the whole thing implode and see what that looks like.

The New York Times ran an opinion piece yesterday entitled, For the Good of the Country, Older Americans Should Work More and Take Less. When I read this opinion piece, I became infuriated. You can find it HERE if you want, but I plan to talk about it below. The gist of the piece is that older Americans are retiring too early and straining the support system of social security. It seems to be written by a man who is an economist and lives in his ivory tower somewhere and is tone deaf to what it is like to work for a regular "middle class" salary and to have performance evals where you are reminded by your employer of who has the power, and how you better "toe the line" in order to keep your job. The implied threat in all of this is that brutal capitalism will crush you without the job and thus, you should be grateful. It's a decades-old way of traumatizing workers and reminding "adults" here (these are not children) that the rod can fall across your back as sure as the rod beats those who do not comply.

Oh...and it came with this illustration below...which also served to enrage me.

Here's the thing...I don't want to work any longer than I have to. Right now, I'm doing the carrying. I'm not the freeloader. And to imply that one day when I'm old and would like some support that I should say no...and continue to carry others as well as myself...is infuriating. Like...I should sacrifice for someone who is 1/4 of my age so that they can live a better life? I already know people who are 25 years old, have nothing physically wrong with them, and who draw SSI. They play D&D with me in my game. I try not to judge. But the idea that this person is retired while someone stands next to them, finger pointing at me, and says, "Mike...you need to work a few more years before drawing benefits. It's for the good of the country!" makes me angry. I want to say, "What about that lazy bum sitting in that chair that has NEVER worked? What about him?" But we aren't supposed to talk about things like that. Meanwhile, I've sacrificed my ENTIRE life so far in order to carry the weight of others. It is just...no...this is not going to happen. Not on my watch. There comes a time when people are due what is owed to them, especially if they have paid into the system their entire working lives.

What would be a good start in addressing the system that sounds like it will collapse (not if but when) would be to tax the super rich. Tax the crap out of them. Then vote in Medicare for All. That would be a tremendous start. Go after Elon Musk. Go after every multi-millionaire and billionaire in the U.S. with a vengeance. But don't ask already tired middle class people to "work longer" and "don't draw social security." Screw you, writer (Mr. Eugene Steuerle who lectures at Stanford Business School), for even suggesting this. He probably looks at his $30,000 a month income and goes, "Social Security doesn't pay enough to even warrant my interest. You should give it up too." But I think they know that the rich can afford their own armies to fight for them, so they are not easy targets. So they go after the people who have always been exploited and ask them to "sacrifice a little more." It reminds me of the Utah governor who (during a tremendous drought) asked all of us to take shorter showers to conserve water. All of this while churches had green lawns, the governor owned alfalfa farms (notorious for sucking down water), and golf courses sucked down water by the lake full so that people could play on the greens. It's ridiculous. 

I hope that everyone who reads this opinion piece gets as enraged as I am at it. We should say, "Hell No!" and call the bluff. If the bluff is real, and the entire system collapses, well...that will be a disaster. But it will be a disaster worth watching. Maybe in the aftermath of whatever follows, we'd finally get some empathy back in this country, and people would no longer be so entitled and brutal toward others. Sometimes, you've just got to let things collapse so that they can be rebuilt better than before. I've always been a firm believer that in failure there is much to learn.

I'm going to post one more time for 2023 on the Insecure Writers Support Group for November (next week). Then I'll be taking a blogging break until January.