Like Racism? You'll LOVE Social Security.

A very interesting actuarial point which supports a Ryan-esque Social Security fix.

...a black male has a life expectancy (as of 2007, at birth) of 68.8 years. A white woman has a life expectancy has a life expectancy of 81 years. So a black man could be expected to live 3.8 years post-retirement at 65. A white woman, 16 years.

(For some reason, he ignores white men...but they're at 75.7 years according to a 2006 article.)

Anyhoo, figure it out. If you're a black male, you WILL donate a good deal of money to a white woman--and only a bit less to a white male.

Thanks!!

...this is the biggest argument for Social Security (in whatever form it is) being an individual trust fund and being an accumulated asset over one's work life. While such would not prevent you from dying before you received "all your benefits" (whatever they may be) it sure would prevent the government from stealing them - at least your children would get the money!

Ticker has another observation worth knowing:

Most middle-class people have an effective Federal Tax Rate of significantly higher than 12.4%. It is certainly true that for those people who are in the lower-income brackets their federal income tax burden is near or at zero - especially for those who qualify for the EIC. But a 12.4% effective federal income tax rate typically shows up for a single person with income around $50,000, and for a married couple in the $60-80,000 bracket. This hardly qualifies them as "Rich" or "in the top 5%."

The rhetoric, however, is so loud that the facts can't get through.