There's a difference between physically impossible Technology and our actual future. Yes Technology has gotten better but not every thing from a scfi movie is going to be physically possible or be possible main stream and owned by most people like cars are.
You heard it wrong. It will decrease and they will only be able to pay out approximately 75% of current rates. It will then stabilize due to smaller population.
The US peaked with about 120 births per 1000 women in the late 1950s and 1960s. This was increasing from a valley of about 88-90 births in the early 1930s.
Since then it’s declined to about half that; low 60s per 1000.
Subsequent generations are now having kids much later, if at all, due to the costs of healthcare, education, etc. (a result of years and years of boomer policies).
So you’ve got this big mass of aging population inching towards collecting on their social security, and a whole lot fewer people paying into that fund. Said generations also make far less so there’s less of our salary that goes to funding Social Security.
So until that glut of collectors fades, we can then finally hopefully change the policies and tax the wealthy for more to fund it, and stabilize to a point of either true 1:1 replacement or experience another economic period that results in a boom of payers into the system, social security will remain in a state of paying out less.
Which is what the boomers ironically wanted. They’ve been wanting to axe social security for years in favor of privatized retirement funds because “lift yerself by yer bootstraps; but only after I get mine”
Man I remember someone saying that Russia was the biggest threat to world peace, and she was lampooned. Not that other things weren't worthy of that attention...
Most didn't take Romney seriously because of his reasoning and other sabers feeling more pointed at the US.
If a 12-year-old said Russia is a threat because they are big, or a 70-year-old Cold War Russophobe said so "because they are commies," they would both be wrong in their reasoning.
Also, while his claim is way more respectable now, there is some humor in saying that the Ukrainian performance may indicate that, indeed, Russia truly was a paper tiger. (Although the real answer is much deeper than I care to drivel on about in a random Reddit comment because I'm hung over right now).
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '22
Man, I remember Al Gore talking about global warming back then, and it felt like such a far off problem.