I probably shouldn't be so bitter

I got that Social Security statement this year from the states that you get every few years. It's an update of how much you've paid into the system and how much you can expect to get upon retirement. Depending on when I choose to "receive benefits", I can expect from $550 to $970 per month. And this is assuming I never work in the states again. That seemed like a lot until I saw that until the year 2000, I had already contributed fifty thousand dollars to the system. And I've still got 25-30 years before it's benefit time. They would have to be very bad investors AND I would have to live longer than anyone ever in my family for them to lose money on this deal.

Oh, and then right there in bold print, they say this:

*Your estimated benefits are based on current law. Congress has made changes to the law in the past and can do so at any time. The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2041 (I'll be dead 76) the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 74 percent of scheduled benefits.

Maybe if they hadn't robbed the gobs of money in the SS fund and truly invested it and treated it like an asset to grow, we wouldn't be "predicting" the shortfall. Now I can't help wondering what if the Iraq war trillions had been used to shore up SS ? I would certainly have felt better about taking care of old Americans who had worked and paid into a system all their lives than seizing control of an oil rich country and slaughtering thousands of its citizens.

But then again, maybe I'm over simplifying things.