re: Taking people's savings (SS) away would be no different than cleaning out bank accounts

Walk in to a social security waiting room. Estimate the percentage of people waiting there who speak English.

Vast majority do not. THAT's the "unsolvable" problem.

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How do you want to see it touched? I started taking at 62 so I could receive my benefit before hysteria built to take it away or reduce it. Now Senator Grassley is suggesting the benefit should start at 72. It will be hard to take it away from those receiving it. I agree SS is a mess. Our politicians are incapable of coming up with a solution.

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SS should have been converted to a regulated private system of actual retirement investment decades ago, but Dems in particular wanted to keep it in a "lock box."

Had SS been a private plan with a negative return on investment, the managers would be in jail.

An average stock index over the last 40 years has grown at a rate of nearly 10% or about 6% over the average yearly rate of inflation.

The Social Security "Trust Fund" pays 2% or about -2% relative to inflation. In constant dollars, a "contribution" from 40 years ago, is repaid with money with about 2/5th of its original value.

That's quite a racket.

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Knowing what we know about SS, if you haven't started your own 401k or IRA then you only have yourself to blame

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Too bad those 15% contributions were going into a Washington Ponzi Scheme and slush fund instead of actual private retirement accounts invested in the productive economy.

Going forward going into regulated private accounts is perhaps the only way out.

Of course, the "Trust Fund" is very much dependent on the economy and most of the dire warnings were centered in the Obama economy not the booming Trump economy.

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But that's not the point. The point is I was forced by threat payed in to a system that said "you'll get this back when you retire" when in fact I'll never see any of it because i'll be told "you were too successful, so your money is now their money."

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It's worse than that. See my emphasis. Unfortunately, the government has never guaranteed a what the return would be. It became "their" money the day you paid your taxes.

SS is a terrible deal for just about everyone.

It's a good example of why we should never trust the government for our personal well-being.

I kinda sorta understand how you feel based upon the socialist push from leftists democrats. If they do somehow manage to steal America away from it's position of the best and most blessed nation the Almighty ever allowed on this earth then who knows...maybe your forced savings and those of your spouse will be shorted.

I never once felt that way as a working guy since people were basically sane only a few years ago. One of the worst things you could call someone then was a leftist and it never occurred to insult using the socialist word. But odds are it'll still be alive and kicking in 25 years or so. If not it won't matter anyway since that will mean the country did not survive.

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You are doing this your contributions or distributions?

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I get $2,220 per month from SS. Soon my wife will start getting 50% of my amount. I have it deposited into a brokerage account through an investment firm. I pay my income tax out of other funds. It is invested monthly or bi-monthly into equities. The plan is to invest in higher yielding yet riskier funds. I am only trying to get 5% and perhaps somewhat higher return on average with the money. This is just like a current worker would do in a 401K. I will not touch the money until I need it for long term care at say 85 years old. I am doing in some ways what GW Bush recommended years ago except after retirement, later in life. Trying to get some return on this money given the power of compound interest and the time value of money and dollar cost averaging into the market. In 25 to 30 years it will be a reasonable pile of money. And we will choose a charity for any remainder after our deaths. This is not money I want to pass along in an estate. And the politicians would hate someone doing this and would want to means test someone like me out. But I paid in to the system for years.

And when the government starts taking out payment for medicare, I will replace those funds with withdrawal from my IRA funds. I guess I'm a bit of a saver and I know what investment can return in the market.