Maggie's Farm

The Dems were right on Bush's SS reform, though undoubtedly for the wrong reason.

You can no more privatize retirement at 65 than you can make it work as a government payout.

There aren't enough workers per retiree at a 65 cutoff. If something can't work, it won't. (For a privatized system, there would be too many sellers of stock for income and too few buyers, if the retirement age tried to be 65).

The absolutely simple solution can be done instantly: raise the retirement age for benefits until the demographics balance. That keeps SS as an inflation protected annuity that insures you from outliving your income, just as fire insurance protects you from your house burning down.

If you want to retire earlier than the cutoff, do it on your own dime to bridge the gap.

The problem is that you can't get an inflation protected annuity privately, at least not one that will work.

Inflation isn't an insurable event - all your policies go bad at once. Your company won't be there in 30 years when you need it.

The government, though, with the right benefits age, can do it. As inflation rises, wages rise too, so the money in equals the money out.

If you don't want an annuity (which works by not being inheritable, the up-side being that it's cheaper to buy), you may not like the option though.