Reply #14: His plan to allow young people to opt out of Social Security and Medicare [View All]

[JDPriestly]

is foolish. Absolutely stupid. Young people will never save enough to support themselves in their later years. They would rather buy I-Phones than save. We were all a little like that when we were young. And saving will be especially impossible if we have massive inflation.

Read about the Great Inflation in Germany in the 1920s. One of the interesting things about that time was that the courts were inundated with cases brought by landlords who had entered into long-term leases with their tenants. The tenants were not paying enough in some cases to even cover the cost of the basic utilities like heat. The landlords were headed for bankruptcy. In Germany at that time, the courts had the ability to rewrite the terms of the lease so that the rent would be fairer to the landlord. And that was what they did.

In an economy of rapidly rising inflation, the savings of elderly people become worthless. The earnings of the young are more likely to be raised, but eventually everything just falls apart, and the banks fail. When the banks fail, people lose their jobs. Seniors lose their savings. And that is when you need a cooperative program such as Social Security more than ever.

Young people must remember that if their parents don't have Social Security or Medicare, and then their parents lose their savings, the parents will not be able to get jobs and earn money. They will have little or no income. That means that the children whose parents are still living will have to care for and provide for their parents. That is the way it works in real life. So, it is in everyone's interest to maintain Social Security.

Ron Paul has been in Congress a long time. He is right that both Democrats and Republicans are at fault.

Let's remember when we hear our politicians like Alan Simpson and political advisers like Bernanke say that the country is bankrupt, that it is not we who spent the money. It is the members of Congress who spent the Social Security funds on warfare and on giveaways to health insurance companies. They borrowed the Social Security money without a plan to repay it.

And now, the corporations (like Halliburton and many others) to which the Social Security money was paid, have moved the assets that we could take back from them to cover the Social Security debt out of our country. And who allowed them to do that? Congress and the politicians in our country. ALan Simpson is a great example of someone who voted to use our Social Security money for war and now tells us it is gone. If it is gone, it is because he spent it on frivolous unnecessary things.

(How much money have we spent on the crazy equipment and the staff used by Homeland Security at our airports? Our country is supposedly bankrupt, and we are buying all that anti-terrorist stuff? Are you kidding? Pay for it in the cost of airline tickets, please.)

Congress and every president since 1980 are responsible. They had better figure out a plan that brings opportunity back to our country for our youth and that maintains Social Security and Medicare. We are all in this together -- all generations. There can be no pitting of children and parents against each other.

Ron Paul should be just as ashamed of himslef as anyone else. He favors laissez-faire economics and free trade just like the rest of them. And laissez-faire economics and free trade are code words for shipping the industrial power and wealth of the US to other countries. That is all they are. He is an Ayn Rand fan, and most of our economic woes can be blamed on the Ayn Rand laissez-faire and free trade policies.