I do have a recent statement (2009) handy and it shows that the contributions I made in my first 20 years of full-time employment (I’m leaving out the contributions from part-time jobs I held in my school days) plus my employers’ contributions would be distributed back to me in a little more than 5 years. So, it’s not 6 months, at least for the time period (1986-2006) relevant for me. BUT – you also have to consider inflation otherwise the calculation is meaningless. I don’t know the appropriate multiplier so I’m not going to attempt the adjustment but the result would obviously be greater than the unadjusted number.

But as others have pointed out – so what? We’re talking about a social insurance program that’s intended to reduce if not eliminate poverty among the elderly not a personal investment program. Unless one is fortunate enough to be wealthy (and yes, luck is involved) the threat of poverty once one enters the “golden years” is very real. That was the major goal of FDR in introducing Social Security and those who denigrate it should really take a look back at what things were like before it’s introduction. And please, the benefits are very modest compared to other Western, industrial countries’ programs. Social Security was supposed to be one leg of a three-legged stool, the others being private pensions and personal savings, supporting retirement. Now that pensions are mostly gone and personal savings have been decimated by the financial crash and the deflation of the housing bubble Social Security is more important than ever. It would be a gross mistake by the Dems to make a deal that cuts SS and Medicare benefits on the premise that they will then be seen as “fiscally responsible” but then again there seems to be no lower bound to their stupidity.

The fiscal cliff will be used as an opportunity by many in the Democratic Party to reach that long-sought deal on deficits, presumably to “take it off the table” for future elections,

Yeah, the same way voting for the Iraq War took the national security issue “off the table” for future elections.

Does that nail go all the way through your head or does it just fuck up the parts controlling higher thought functions?

If Democrats can’t exploit how significantly the elected Republican disagree with the American public on this issue in 2012 (when the Bush tax cuts are set again to expire), it will be an act of serious political malpractice.

Which means it will be completely within character for them.

And just how does that work..Governments do not create jobs.

Then who are all those teachers, police officers, fire fighters, government office and maintenance workers and military personnel working for?

Ever heard of the Manhattan Project or the space program? Were those guys all volunteers?

What makes your comment spectacularly ignorant and uniformed (note to Mods – I’m specifically applying the adjectives to the comment) is that corporations are sitting on hoards of cash that they are not using to create jobs which puts the lie to your implication that the private sector can be entrusted with maintaining the employment levels our society requires.

And, just how do we pay for these government jobs??

The same way we pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, all the corporate welfare we dispense to Wall St, the banking industry and military contractors. Government spending creates economic activity. In the case of direct government employment, the workers pay taxes and use their income to purchase goods and services in the private sector. Furthermore, government spending to support public infrastructure can (if spent properly) be a critical stimulator of private sector economic activity – think the interstate highways, the internet, etc.

Maybe if we weren’t a majority Christian country our value system might be better? We might try practicing some actual religious values for a change?

What “religious” values would those be? Religion is BULLSHIT. It accomplishes nothing more than suckering the common folk into blind fealty to authoritarian worship cults on the premise that some imaginary being will grant them eternal life. This makes them much easier for the oligarchic power structures, to which all successful religions invariably align themselves, to control the population’s thinking and behavior.