Ok, one last thing about Oil companies... here is a statement on CNN.com about the oil companies and profits...

"The average net profit margin for the S&P Energy sector, according to figures from Thomson Baseline, is 9.7%. The average for the S&P 500 is 8.5%. So yes, energy companies are more profitable than many others...but not by an inordinate amount.
Google, for example, reported a net profit margin of 25% in its most recent quarter. Should we have an online advertising windfall profit tax? "

So... it appears that oil companies are not as well off as many think... even though they deal in really big numbers.

Now... the social security thing...

Yes, everyone who receives it has paid into it... and if they received back what they paid into it, I'd be good with that, even with a mild form of interest attached. For example, if I paid in $200 a week for 20 years, I would have 'banked' $208,000 dollars into the system. Now, I'm not an accountant so I might screw this math up royally, but let's say that we compound 4% interest on that to be generous, over the 20 years, I have now invested about $318,000 dollars INTO social security. Take away 5% (for round numbers) for administration, leaving me around $302,000.

So, now I start getting my social security check... how much should it be?

If I take out my $200 per week again, I should be able to withdraw for 20 years, right?

But does it work that way?

Nope... a lower income worker gets a higher percentage of their contributions back than a higher income worker does. Benefits are also based on Cost of living indexes and also are reduced if you work and earn more than your social security benefit.

So... I also found a chart that in 1960 5.1 workers supported the system and each beneficiary of the system, where in 2031 it is estimated that only 2.1 workers will be supporting that same beneficiary, which means their SS contribution will have to increase... or the beneficiary benefit has to decrease to keep the system solvent...

While it is a workable system, the fact that we have fewer paying into a system that has been reduced or ineffectively managed makes it a defective system. It will eventually fail in the current form.

So what would be so wrong with phasing it out and expecting people to pay for their own retirement?