It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

I while ago, I wrote an entry about how to fix social security . I stand by the idea, btw; I still think it's the most feasible approach to unwinding the pyramid scheme that FDR left us with before its inevitable collapse. However, recently I was pondering that the social security problem is not isolated to that one (admittedly gargantuan) government-created disaster in the making, but is a more general problem with retirement plan accounting and funding, and how ripe for abuse they are. You see, the general problem with retirement plans is that you are collecting money now to pay benefits in the future, and it all goes into the same pool of money. Because the specific benefits are not directly tied to the money being paid in, and the expectations of investment growth are arbitrary, the system is easy to manipulate and abuse. In the government's case, FDR set up a classic pyramid scheme (which would be obviously illegal in the private sector, for good reason), in order to have ...

So browsing other blog/news posts this morning, I came across a link to a Washington Post article which discussed how federal employees are largely happy these days, even in the face of the broad economic malaise in the US. This makes sense, of course: after all, (including benefits) federal workers are compensated roughly double what private workers are for the same jobs, employment is up, and the prospects of government largess into the indefinite future are arguably higher than ever. In addition, with the Democratic party essentially running all of the government, you might imagine the majority of people in government being Democrat inclined, which would generally make them more content with the recent direction of the country, and actions of its leadership. However, this does raise an interesting dilemma for the country in general. With an ever increasing public payroll, and the real possibility that at some point the majority of the voters will be receiving public payouts in one ...