re: Myth- “social security is guaranteed”.

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Matt wants young people to be able to forfeit SS

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I would LOVE for young people to have that option. Matt does not understand why that will never occur.

HINT: It has absolutely nothing to do with young people's spending habits.

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The problem with your analysis is that Shrimper Dan's comment to me was not made in a vacuum and was part of an ongoing discussion which he chimed in on.

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The context of ShrimperDan's response and my subsequent comment had everything to do with continue Social Security staying as-is. The poster you were sparring with (Midtiger farm) who sparked your question about how successive generations will also get screwed was also talking about what happens if it continues. Successive generations likely will get screwed similar to the Greatest generation had better SS benefits than the Boomers as NC Tigah stated.

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The poster with whom I was having that discussion (and notice that I didn't say "thread," I said "discussion," and that's what I was referring to, not the whole thread) was indeed advocating a revenge-quit on the Boomers.

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Really? Check 4 posts down on page 14 of this thread when you first question why I questioned you.

"The whole premise of the thread is stopping SS"

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Now that we can (hopefully) finally let that go,

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Maybe you can; I can't and won't and didn't, obviously.

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the Boomers won't get screwed and neither will anybody else. Because they won't stop the program and they won't reform it either, other than that they will raise taxes in some form to keep paying for it. As a last resort, they'll import more immigrants and give them citizenship so they can pay for it.

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Possible, but I doubt it. Like NC Tigah said, whatever changes happen to make it keep going will likely cost the successive generations, not the Boomers just like it cost the Boomers and not the generations prior to them.

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If young people are really worried about it, they need to start having some fricking kids.

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Easier said than done. I have two, working on more, but it's expensive as hell. It's a different world than when the Boomers came of age.

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The Boomers did their part by having enough kids to pay for their retirement. If Gen Y and Z aren't willing to do so, then that's on them.

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GenX and Millennials have not paid enough into Social Security to cover the Boomers, so I don't know where you're getting that from. There's a been a trend to smaller families starting with the Boomers (2-3 kids; 1-2 since them). There's a lot that goes into why, but it's only become more expensive to have children. It's not so simple to just say have more kids.

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And anybody who is going to start whining that people don't have the money to have kids anymore please explain this chart to me showing the inflation adjusted rise of median disposable income since 1900 (when the median number of kids was 3.5). Average people have never had more money than they do now.

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Nice graph, but it lacks context. As defined by the source of the graph, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, real disposable income is "the income that's left after people pay their taxes is disposable personal income, also known as after-tax income. It's the amount that U.S. residents are able to spend, save, or invest." It's only total after-tax (fed, state, and local - no sales) income. The left-over income still has to pay for people to live.

Real Disposable Income

That graph speaks nothing to the percentage of personal costs of living relative to disposable income. It was around 67% from 1964 to 1984. It's around 92% now. So, yeah, the average person has more disposable income (by the USBEA) than ever before, but their financial liabilities relative to that income have never been higher than before (note: the 2008 saw a spike in this and it had a taper back down). yes, I realize there's a lot that goes into that, both good and bad reasons, but it is without a doubt more expensive to live now that it was 50 years ago relative to disposable income.

Liabilities relative to disposable income