those who die before receiving them, is now, always has been, and  always must be, or the system will fail. Part of the problem is we may expect too much return from too little put into the pot. Many feel, 'I deserve a good retirement, because I worked all of my life.'

Our frustration with the system stems from our own mistaken belief that we did work all of our lives. Time for a reality check.

Here is a simple time-study of our time between arriving in and departing from this life. It involves numbers that we all use all the time, such as minutes in an hour, hours in a day, days in a year, and years in a lifetime.

From arrival to departure, many are fortunate to get 75 years. That is 100% of our time. This is how we allocate it.

We are babies, toddlers, school children, and students for somewhere between 17 and 25 years. The median is 21 years. Do the math: 75 - 21 = 54 years left for 'working all of my life.' That sounds doable.

Retirement at 65 was the premise of Social Security when President Roosevelt signed the law years ago. Retire at 65, depart life at 75, =10 years living in retirement. Do the math: 54 years left, -10 years in retirement =44 years left for 'working all of my life.'

That still sounds like plenty of time to provide a good retirement.

Now move from years to weeks. Most of us worked 52 weeks a year, with two or three weeks vacation. We also enjoyed about ten paid holidays a year, using two more weeks. Do the math: 52 weeks minus three weeks for vacation and minus two more for  holidays = 47 weeks a year. That is (47/52) 90% of the time. We have 90% of 44 years, or 39 ¾ years left, for 'working all of my life.'

Still sounds like plenty of time to provide a good retirement.

Let's refine our time study of life from the number of weeks to the number of hours. With 24 hours in every day, and seven days in our week, we have 168 hours to work with. But we normally average only 40 hours a week. Do the math: 40 / 168 = 23.8%. But 23.8% of our 39 ¾ years leaves only 9.46 years for 'working all of my life.'

Working only 9.46 years may not be enough invested in 'working all of my life.'
From that 9.46 years, we must still subtract our sick days, our hospitalized days, and our out-of-work days.

We must also subtract from that balance the time of all of the people in prisons who are living, eating, and using housing, but not being productive members of society.
 
We must further subtract from that balance the time of all of the people on welfare. They are being fed, housed, and cared for by a compassionate nation. But they make little or no contribution to the common good.

Estimating by extrapolation, we Americans, as a nation, only work about nine percent of our lives. We see that President is not alone. Our accepted view of 'working all of my life' is our own misguided assessment of reality.

Reality must be faced. Because we now live longer, we must work longer.

The numbers presented here are cold hard results of time study. To make Social Security work as intended, we, and President Bush, must deal with this reality. In our town, we see this reality in action daily. Many residents aged 65 to 80 are back in the work force.
 
As discussed in articles of Mar 26, 2004 and April 2, 2004, we need to add the flow of taxes on products made overseas. Those workers are not contributing to the nation from which they earn their living. We must demand that they do so.

There will be displacements when we tax imports. So be it. We have suffered many displacements since the first foreign car arrived tax free. Imports have put tens of manufactures, hundreds of cities, and millions of Americans between a hard life and a life of poverty. Had imports paid into our Social Security trust fund, we would not have this problem.

At the end of WWII, in 1945, our country was the greatest manufacturing nation in the history of the world. Americans paid taxes to provide benefits to foreign nations for 60 years. Some foreign nations that we saved now blame our problems on our free spending ways. We should listen to them. We should stop paying for troops in Germany, Japan, Korea, and many other places. Reform our spending habits. Let all nations pay for their own defense. We will then balance our budget with relative ease.

American workers served in our armed forces, and also pay taxes here. They produce products for sale. When any American chooses to buy a foreign made product in favor of an American made one, they undermine our national strength, including our Social Security system. It is time to level the playing field.

Ben Franklin once said, "Either we will hang together, or surely we will hang separately." The world has not changed in that respect. We Americans must work together for our common good, or our economic competitors will eat our lunch and dinner, then come stay in our hotels and resorts while we serve them our meals.

Protecting Social Security is one battlefield where the future of our national security is being fought. Join the battle. You can influence people. Send this article to everyone in your e-mail address book. Don't be afraid of being called an American patriot. Carry on the 'Spirit of '76.' I'll be 76 next month, and if I can do it, you can do it too.
 
That is my New ThinK for this month. What do you think?

 

God Bless America

Poppa Kelly

Next month: How our tax code discourages our national saving rate.