Jack wrote this in November, 2005:
Hi blogsters:
I never cared for Social Security all those years they took it out of my earnings.
From 1958, for forty-odd years I put money into that pool and never expected to live long enough to see any of it come back. Or, alternatively, I expected it to be bankrupt by the time I reached the age where there’d be some returns.
In a couple of weeks I’m going to be 62 years old. I recently filled out all the paperwork online, still figuring it would be a miracle if I ever saw a penny of that money from all those years. I haven’t kept track of what’s happening with the system, and it just seemed too unlike most of my perceptions of government for them to actually pay back something the way they claimed they would.
Well, the US Postal Service managed to get a nice, xeroxed letter from them to me saying, hey…. YOU MADE IT! You gonna get a check from us every month because you made 62 circuits of the sun and we’re just naturally going to send you a check, same as if you were someone else.
Won a small jackpot and took the annuity, you might say.
On the other hand, it means I have something of an obligation to live another four years just to get back the bare bones of what I paid in over the years, minus interest.
Which I damned well plan to do, provided I don’t die.
Jack
So Far From Heaven 