Thoughts about retirement & wealth distribution

CONTEXT

A potential source of wealth for all Americans is government benefits. Most Americans do not have enough accumulated wealth for what they say is a reasonably comfortable retirement. Median Retirement Savings by Age:

• Ages 55-64: $185,000
• Ages 65-74: $200,000
• Ages 75+: $130,000

That is way below the ~$1.26 million that Americans say believe they need for a comfortable retirement. Combined with other retirement accounts (401k, 403b, IRA, pensions), which represent 21% of household wealth, Social Security and retirement accounts together account for approximately 41% of total U.S. household wealth.

Medicare beneficiary financial profile:

• 25% had savings below $18,950 per person in 2024
• 50% had savings below $110,100 per person
• 25% had no home equity at all

For the 25% of Medicare beneficiaries with less than $18,950 in savings, the $230,000-$260,000 Medicare benefit value represents more than 12 times their total other assets. 

Other data: 

• 63.2% of adult Social Security recipients receive at least 50% of their total income from Social Security
• 43.6% receive 75% or more of their income from Social Security
• 27% rely on Social Security as their only source of income

To understand the magnitude, Social Security wealth totaled an estimated $73.3 trillion in 2019. That's about double all other household-sector pension and retirement account assets combined. It's ~75% the size of all conventionally measured household net worth. This makes Social Security the present value of future benefits roughly double all other household-sector pension and retirement account assets.

In other words, Social Security and medical care benefits are a major source of wealth for a lot of Americans.

Blog post

Although MAGA politicians promise to protect Social Security and Medicare, their policy proposals and legislative actions are a sustained effort to significantly reduce these programs. There is a massive disconnect between MAGA rhetoric and its governing reality. If MAGA does what is really wants to do, there would be catastrophic consequences for American households that depend on these programs as their primary source of wealth.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), 80% of House Republicans (175 of 222 members) and 100% of House Republican leadership, repeatedly proposed dramatic cuts to Social Security. MAGA could not get that passed through congress, but it reflected their intent to gut government benefits. Their FY 2024 budget called for:

• Over $1.5 trillion in cuts to Social Security over the coming decade
• Raising the retirement age from 67 to 69
• Cutting disability benefits
• Eliminating cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for higher-income beneficiaries
• Using a chained inflation index that would reduce benefit growth

Those changes would result in a 31% benefit reduction for median workers, i.e., those earning around $58,700 annually—and a 40% reduction for workers earning $94,000. 

In July 2025, House Republicans passed a budget bill that:

• Strips health coverage from 17 million Americans
• Cuts Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP food assistance
• Eliminates Medicare savings programs affecting 1.4 million low-income beneficiaries
• Repeals nursing home minimum staffing rules
• Imposes Medicaid work requirements affecting 5.2 million adults

The Congressional Budget Office projects this legislation would result in over 51,000 additional preventable deaths annually.

MAGA politics is highly focused on (1) transferring both wealth and power from average citizens and the public interest, and (2) capturing and transferring as much of it as possible to political, business and religious elites.

The bottom line: For the bottom 90% of American households, these programs represent their primary source of economic security and wealth. The MAGA agenda effectively transfers this wealth and attendant power from working families to wealthy individuals via tax cuts. That fundamentally restructures American society's approach to economic security and wealth distribution.

An interesting thought --

maybe a bit oversimplified . . . .

MAGA's moral rot infects libertarian dogma

Radical right political morality

If the self-professed libertarian Rand Paul is a good example of weak libertarian moral and political principle, MAGA's moral rot has infected and rotted libertarianism. In a stunning abandonment of libertarian free speech principle, Paul now calls for a "crackdown" on bad free speech related to Charlie Kirk's murder. Until recently, Paul was a long-time free speech champion. This wacko response to Kirk's murder shows the intellectual inconsistency in modern Republican Party's relationship with civil liberties. Apparently Paul is too morally weak to stand by his principle in the face of MAGA moral rot.

In a show of infantile reasoning, Paul responded to the statement "Oh people have a right to say things" by responding "Well actually they don't necessarily have a right to say things, many people have in their contract what we call a morals clause .... or a conduct clause". What contract Paul has in mind, if any, is beside the point bullshit.

FWIW, morals clauses, while legally enforceable, have very specific applications and cannot broadly restrict political commentary. These clauses typically appear in contracts for high-profile positions - entertainment industry professionals, corporate executives, professional athletes, and public figures whose conduct directly impacts their employer's brand. They are not standard in most employment contracts.

Rand Paul is someone who needs a contract to keep him from saying stupid things. A good stupidity clause would be quite helpful.

As a long-time observer of American politics, it's amazing how much of our country was held together by a wink, a handshake, and a few norms and moral principles. Most of the norms and morals are now blown to smithereens by MAGA rot. All it took was some blowhard to say "nah, I don't think we will be doing that" and then they set the whole damned thing on fire. 

Bad libertarian, bad, bad libertarian!

Obviously, we don't have wise or 

knowledgeable leaders

djt sues the NYT

djt sued the NYT for $15 billion for defamation. Among lots of other things, he alleges (1) the NYT engaged in a decades-long pattern of intentional and malicious defamation, (2) the NYT is a full-throated Democrat Party mouthpiece that has abandoned journalistic objectivity, and (3) he has suffered reputational damage from the NYT's coverage of his relationship with Epstein. 

MBFC's NYT assessment

The allegations so far are legally weak based on current defamation law, but the case is still at early stages. More details might come out that change the assessment. To win, djt must prove actual malice, which is almost impossible for public figures. Proof of defamation requires clear and convincing evidence (less than beyond a reasonable doubt, more than more likely than not) that the NYT acted with knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. 

Evidence of mere negligence by the NYT is insufficient to support defamation liability. The "clear and convincing evidence" requirement is specifically designed to protect robust press reporting about public figures, the point being to ensure that defamation law doesn't chill legitimate journalism.

Also relevant is the fact that many or most of statements he says are defamatory are opinion or analysis, not verifiable false facts. Opinion and analysis are protected under the First Amendment. Also, for assertions of facts, truth as absolute defense. If the NYT's reporting about Trump's business practices, financial losses, crimes or other matters is substantially true, the lawsuit fails regardless of malice.

However as usual, the wild card is our MAGAfied USSC. At this point, djt knows he will lose in court under existing law. But his hope is that our radical MAGA USSC will assert the unitary executive theory or something else to find the NYT liable. 

This lawsuit is a great vehicle for our authoritarian USSC to eliminate the primary constitutional barrier to making press criticism go away. Shutting up press criticism a cherished MAGA dream. If this court is so inclined, and it definitely is, weak underlying legal claims are irrelevant. This MAGA USSC has clearly shown it will find ways to reach desired political outcomes regardless of legal merit if the stakes are high enough. Will MAGA judges do it? They certainly want to do it. But will they? Time will tell. 

Personal estimate: ~75% chance the USSC will find the NYT liable for defamation, ~60% chance the damages will be be enough to bankrupt the newspaper.

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MAGA dictatorship against free speech

MAGA elites deny that they oppose speech that they claim is critical or bad for the US or its interests. Their rhetoric claims to be pro-free speech. But the true intention is the opposite. MAGA elites want to shut all critics up. MAGA's hypocrisy on this point is off the charts.

House MAGA politician, Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), has proposed a law that takes major step toward full censorship of all free speech that MAGA dislikes or disagrees with. The deceit in the proposed law is that it targets speech allegedly related to terrorist groups. But given its intentionally ambiguous language, the law empowers the Secretary of State, currently the MAGA thug Marco Rubio, unlimited power to passports of any US citizen who says anything he claims provide "material support" for any terrorist group. 

The proposed law specifies that alleged support for terrorist groups triggers Rubio's power to revoke a passport. The problem is that Rubio's unilateral determination that a person has provided "material support" to a terrorist group cannot be reviewed by any court. Unlike other federal laws that include detailed definitions of what amounts to "material support", e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 2339A, Mast's dictator law intentionally leaves the concept completely undefined. Rubio personally gets to decide what material support is and the courts cannot intervene. 

The bill simply states the Secretary may revoke passports for people who "the Secretary determines" provided material support. In short, this bill gives unprecedented power one executive branch official to restrict fundamental constitutional rights based on unilateral subjective determinations. There is no provision for independent judicial oversight or clear standards of evidence. This is dictatorship, pure and simple.

Despite their rudderless dysfunction, Senate Democrats will presumably prevent this dictator law from passing. If so, the law will die as a symbol of MAGA aspirations to control everything with a brutal iron fist. I post this as evidence of the autocratic mindset that drives MAGA elites. Despite Democratic Party dysfunction, one can presume that the chances of this rotten law passing into real law is nil.**

** Of course, all bets are off if Senate Repubs vote to get rid of the filibuster or they simply attach this law to another bill that can be passed via budget reconciliation, whether budget reconciliation applies or not. If that happens, this could become a real law.