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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 4, 2008

Will Retire When Ready

Regarding "Early Retirement Unpatriotic" (Commentary, April 27):

If I work hard to be able to self-fund my retirement at 55 years old, why not? I'd like to enjoy my golden years rather than slave away for the benefit of the government. It is not my burden to fund the government's mismanagement of tax dollars. If I can take care of my own finances wisely, why can't our elected officials?

But Andrew Yarrow does not have to worry because, in our current economy, I don't think anyone can afford to retire anytime soon. If Yarrow wants to work till he drops dead in the name of civic duty that is his business. As far as I am concerned, I will retire and have a blast doing so!

TINA ALVAREZ

Wesley Chapel

Imagine Florida Impact
Can you imagine what would happen to Florida and the rest of the country if people heeded Andrew Yarrow's advice?

First, most of the over-55 mobile home parks would go down the tubes along with many stores and restaurants.

Second, a large number of new college graduates would not be able to find jobs.

I would love to take Yarrow - when he turns 62 years old - on a construction site or other workplace where people did more than sit at a desk.

STEPHEN MORAN

Largo

Writer Has Some Gall

When you think you have heard all the absurdity there is to hear, we discover there is plenty of room left over for more.

Yarrow's overeducated public agenda is passing the buck onto retired seniors while leaving the government politicians off the hook for accountability in creating the multitrillion dollar national debt and mortgaging off the future of our children and grandchildren to begin with.

If the government stopped giving away all the billions of foreign aid to countries who hate us, and discontinued spending millions of hard-earned American tax dollars to feather the nest of illegal immigrants with free health care, education, etc., then we wouldn't be having this debt hanging over America's head.

Yes, what a convenient solution: to have seniors work the rest of their golden years into the grave so government won't have to send out those pension and Social Security checks.

All I have to say to Yarrow and his unpatriotic gall is, "How dare you!"

JOYCE GROCHOWICZ

Spring Hill

Taxes Are Disincentive

Andrew L. Yarrow's assertions that any sort of retirement, early or otherwise, is selfish and unpatriotic and results in the leeching of trillions of dollars from our economy fails to address a very important point: The way our tax laws actually discourage working beyond retirement age. When it takes almost five months of working just to make enough to pay your tax burden for the year, what's the point!

If you really want to keep people working past retirement age, remove their tax obligations and let them keep what they earn. Most have already been paying their fair share for more than 40 or 50 years and in reality have very little to show for it.

DAN GILLER

St. Petersburg

One-Way Loyalty

In response to Andrew L. Yarrow's article, let me ask him this: who is more unpatriotic:

A. The senior citizen who retires because they will lose Social Security or retirement benefits if they don't and the only jobs that are available to them pay barely above minimum wage; or

B. The growing list of companies and CEOs that have pushed them out of the U.S. workforce because they have shipped jobs overseas for cheap labor or have laid them off and replaced them with younger workers at half the salary, all to benefit the stockholders and justify their bloated salaries and bonuses.

Why should people be loyal to the U.S. economy when it is no longer loyal to them?

JOHN GRUPPOSO

Tampa

It's A Ponzi Scheme

Ponzi, n: An investment swindle in which early investors are paid off with money put up by later investors (aka Social Security).

The Social Security system is a Ponzi scheme. If it had been run by a private individual they would be in jail. Before anyone asks me to give up my Social Security, the politicians that perpetrated this fraud must be fined to pay off the Social Security recipients and go to jail or, if they are dead, their estates must be garnished to pay off the Social Security recipients.

I graduated from the University of Florida in 1965 and worked until 2007. For those 42 years I paid the maximum Social Security tax and my employers paid a matching amount. By conservative estimate, had that money been invested it would now be worth between $1 million and $1.5 million.

I knew Social Security was a Ponzi scheme in 1963 when we analyzed the program as a class exercise in basic economics. The power of government was used to extort money from me and my peers to fund a swindle we knew was doomed to failure. So, please don't tell me I am unpatriotic when I demand that those involved pay with their freedom and their treasure. Otherwise, send me my money!

CHARLES PALMER

Lutz

Plan Is Off Base

Regarding "McCain Health Care Plan: Tax Credits For Insurance" (front page, April 30):

Senator John McCain is an honorable person who I respect, but he is way off base on health care. His $5,000 credit assumes that people can afford heath care in the first place and that they have no pre-existing conditions. That is not the real world.

On the government making health care decisions, he needs to be reminded that the private companies are "private" bureaucracies. My "private" insurance company decided that I didn't need a certain medication even though my physician insisted that I did. This is still unresolved. So much for the private sector and health care.

We still have a major health care problem in this country. Let's think outside the box on this one.

ROSS P. ALANDER

Tampa

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