Michael Jones writes that while the Social Insurance system of Social Security was good in the old days, it will not work that well in the future because current young workers will have to pay too much their whole lives for limited benefits when they retire. They won't get as good a deal as the older generations did.
Certainly they won't get as good a deal, becuase the system has "matured" as its founders envisioned. At that point, they also envisioned that more general revenues be used to support the system, not just the payroll tax, and I think we really should look in that direction now. In fact, that's what various proposals to use the budget surplus to "save" Social Security do.
But to change the system from pay as you go to savings as Michael suggests costs an enormous amount. Is it worth it to today's workers to have to pay for two systems (the current one so today's retirees won't starve) and the savings-oriented one to provide their own retirement, just so the generation after them will have a savings-based system of retirement income that they won't have had to pay twice for?
I also worry about the deflationary impact of such a huge savings pool.
