First Boomer Files For Social Security!

I read this week about the lady who was born in early January 1946, identified as the very first baby boomer, and she has now officially applied for her social security benefits to begin at age 62. Wow! That means I am now officially in line. If the estimate is close, it means I’m one of the early boomers with only 79,999, 999 in line after this lady. Eighty million folks. They estimate this massive group will add to the social security rolls to the tune of 10,000 people per day! It reminds me of a joke told by Bob Hope one time. He said that with the Chinese producing a billion people they bound to have been doing something other than playing ping pong. Obviously, the post WWII baby boom means that we as a nation will now be entering into unchartered waters.

I could be a smart aleck about it and send notice to each of the 3.3 workers that support one social security receipient and tell them they to need to work harder and longer hours as we boomers come on the scene. The stats indicate back in 1950 there were 16 workers supporting each receipient. The times they are a changing. I think the current estimate is that with the additional strain on the system, it should be solvent until 2043 and then it will go belly up. That concerns me because I will turn 97 that year. Man, there’s always a catch!

I know it has become fashionable for the younger generations to joke about how social security will be nothing more than a footnote in the history book by the time they reach retirement age. This has been a concern kicked around for a long time but while liars do often figure, actual figures typically do not, although it might be wise to consider the source in this instance, that being the United States Government. We can only hope they do their usual miserable job of forecasting!
Thinking about really crazy misses in forecasting, here’s a few notable ones from fairly recent history:

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”

Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”

The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

“But what … is it good for?”

Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”

A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.

“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.”

Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”

Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’”

Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.”

Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

“This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He’s doomed.”

Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”

Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.”

Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873

I guess at this point and time it’s better to hope the predictions concerning the demise of the social security trust fund, (it’s not a real trust fund, it’s like the famous Al Gore lockbox), will end up like some of these famous miscalculations. But there is that thing called the inevitable and it usually has the last laugh. But for me and those who have our trust in God, our hope is in the Lord our God and He will provide for His own. That’s really the only way we can be assured of anything, period, end of story. …More later.