*I didn’t mean to imply that everyone should have or does have family to help out. Some people simply don’t. Sometimes the “helping out” can cause hardships, as I note when researching those caring for family members with Alzheimer’s for my Alzheimer’s Notes blog.

*Getting a good education doesn’t necessarily mean a well-paying job in today’s economy. Many college graduates are working at minimum wage jobs.

*Privatizing, if it means everyone investing for oneself, doesn’t work either, because many people can’t or won’t discipline themselves.

*Aren’t many government employees exempt from paying into Social Security (and receiving it) because there is a separate retirement (usually better than Social Security) set up for them?

*Social Security wasn’t meant as a retirement program…only a stopgap. And wasn’t it originally intended only for a specific number of years, but has run far longer?

*Possibly, with the uncertainty of Social Security looming in the future, it’s well to alert people that they need to begin thinking of other ways to supplement or set up for retirement and emergencies.

The US is the only industrialized country with no universal health care or social net, nor does it provide quality education to ALL its citizens. The kind of education necessary to earn enough to be able to save or know enough to manage a privatized social security-type account. As I recall, the groups most in favor of privatizing social security were all on Wall Street and salivating over the potential management fees.

We used to have the “clan” type of care for families in this country, when several generations lived together. We had grandparents living with us when I was a child, as did my husband. Currently, we’re a multi-generational family, with daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren living with us due to family members health situations. At one time we had my mom living with us when she had Alzheimer’s.