RE: Raising the Retirement Age

[Michael Jones <powerfinger99@yahoo.com>]

<<<<
Whether or not to raise the retirement age is one discussion in
which there is a clear disconnect between the political dialogue in
Washington and the values of working Americans.  Public opinion research
and our own experiences with union members have made it very clear that
the public does not support an increase in the retirement ages.  
>>>>

I agree with Gary here on opposition to raising the retirement age.
The publics opposition to the change demonstrates how antiqued
and restrictive the retirement rules are.

In the future, people will be retiring earlier and not later.
I suspect that when my time comes, retirement will mean something
entirely different than what the government thinks it does now.
This is yet another reason why private individual accounts are
preferable because they offer more flexibility in retirement 
options.

The SSA's own data suggests that more people are requesting
benefits earlier than age 65 than in the past. As time goes on,
I suspect that this trend will increase further because people
want to make sure they at least get some benefit from the system
before it goes bankrupt.

Michael