The usual advice for a fun life: Dance like no one’s looking, drive like you stole the car and save as if Social Security will not exist.
Well. I’ve always thought that one way to make people look at your dancing is to dance as if no one is watching. As for “drive it like you stole it,” we have enough local evidence about how bad that works out. I prefer to drive it as if I own it, and will need it tomorrow.
Social Security? When I was young I resented it, because I knew my money was not sitting in a lockbox somewhere with a purple ribbon around stacks of cash. I think the day I first read about its inevitable collapse was the day I started paying into it.
Now that I am able to claim it, I am, of course, a fierce defender of the status quo and will brook no changes. Hands off my lockbox, kids.
The other night I decided to look up what I would get if I hung it up today. Not that I’m intending to do that; I’m not sitting here with gnarled hands from a lifetime of typing, begging for this unbearable burden of being smart-alecky to be taken from me.
I logged in to my account, imagining Porky Pig at the bottom of the page, waving his little cloven-hoofed hand at the monthly payout, saying “Th-th-that’s all, folks.”
The basic information page was as clear as you might expect. If I don’t claim it for another nine months and 14 minutes, the amount increases. I assume they ran the actuarial tables and said “Push it out to nine, and we’ll save $34 billion. And by ‘save,’ I mean, of course, we won’t have to conjure money into existence with a printing press and a vague popular understanding that these pieces of paper and numbers on a screen have an intrinsic value.”
The idea that I could get this now appeals to the toddler brain. The wise adult part of your brain counsels otherwise:
