Discover the fervor and unexpected vigor from President Joe Biden's latest State of the Union address, as I dissect his performance that shattered opposition expectations. From spirited debates on border security and healthcare to the critical discussions around Social Security's future, join me in unraveling the complex tapestry of today's political climate. I'm pulling no punches in critiquing both the delivery and substance of the address, while also engaging with Congress members to peel back the layers of Biden's legislative achievements, such as the CHIP's Act and pivotal infrastructure developments.
This episode isn't just about the politics of the day; it’s a deep dive into the ideological battleground of retirement in America. Hear from influential voices like Ben Shapiro, as we scrutinize the financial underpinnings of Social Security and the demographic shifts challenging its sustainability. Are we witnessing the unraveling of the American dream of retirement, or is there hope on the horizon? Explore the societal implications of work and retirement, and how community institutions and personal fulfillment contribute to a life well beyond the workforce.
Wrapping up, we contemplate the spiritual and historical lessons from the Biblical narratives of Sarah and Hagar. Their enduring stories shed light on issues that resonate just as strongly today. And don't miss the preview of an upcoming focus on the TikTok controversy, an issue that's igniting conversations nationwide. This episode promises to be a thought-provoking journey through the state of our union and the societal values that underpin it, imbued with political analysis, spiritual insights, and cultural commentary.
Discover the fervor and unexpected vigor from President Joe Biden's latest State of the Union address, as I dissect his performance that shattered opposition expectations. From spirited debates on border security and healthcare to the critical discussions around Social Security's future, join me in unraveling the complex tapestry of today's political climate. I'm pulling no punches in critiquing both the delivery and substance of the address, while also engaging with Congress members to peel back the layers of Biden's legislative achievements, such as the CHIP's Act and pivotal infrastructure developments.
This episode isn't just about the politics of the day; it’s a deep dive into the ideological battleground of retirement in America. Hear from influential voices like Ben Shapiro, as we scrutinize the financial underpinnings of Social Security and the demographic shifts challenging its sustainability. Are we witnessing the unraveling of the American dream of retirement, or is there hope on the horizon? Explore the societal implications of work and retirement, and how community institutions and personal fulfillment contribute to a life well beyond the workforce.
Wrapping up, we contemplate the spiritual and historical lessons from the Biblical narratives of Sarah and Hagar. Their enduring stories shed light on issues that resonate just as strongly today. And don't miss the preview of an upcoming focus on the TikTok controversy, an issue that's igniting conversations nationwide. This episode promises to be a thought-provoking journey through the state of our union and the societal values that underpin it, imbued with political analysis, spiritual insights, and cultural commentary.
No, it may not look like it, but I've been around a while. Good evening. If I were smart, I'd go home now by partisan Bill with the toughest set of border security forms we've ever seen. Oh, you don't think so. Oh, you don't like that, bill huh, that conservatives got together and said it was a good bill. I'll be darned that's amazing by repealing Affordable Care Act. I'm not going to let that happen. You stopped you 50 times before. It will stop you again. I mean, you strongly voted against it. They're cheering on that money coming in. I like that. I'm with you. I'm with you. If any of you don't want that money in your district.
Speaker 1:Just let me know, republicans can cut so security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy. That's the proposal. Oh no, you guys don't want another $2 trillion tax cut. I kind of thought that's what your plan was. Well, that's good to hear. The Federal Chamber of Commerce is in. Yeah, yeah, you're saying, oh, look at the facts. I know, I know you know how to read. Let me close with this. Damn, I know you don't want to hear any more Lindsay, but I got to say a few more things.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Darrell McClain Show. I'm your host, darrell McClain. Today is 315 of 2024. You have the distinct pleasure of listening to me on episode 398.
Speaker 3:Independent media will not reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so let us reason together. It has been a while since we have been together on a political show and so since we have discussed the state of our union you like what I did there with each other President Joe Biden delivered the state of the union.
Speaker 3:My analysis on this is going to be very simple and to the point. Joe Biden did what he needed to do, and that is the most clear-cut analysis that I could say. And that is because the bar for Joe Biden was extremely low For the last, let's say, two years. To be generous, the Republican Party has successfully painted Joe Biden as basically a corpse, someone who cannot get out of the White House, someone who can barely string any sentences together, someone who is totally controlled by a staff. I think we've all heard that narrative.
Speaker 3:Joe Biden came out in the state of the union which with a lot of energy, so much that he was able to, even though he didn't have the fervor that he had, let's say, when he debated Paul Ryan when Mitt Romney was running for president and Paul Ryan was the vice presidential candidate. The Joe Biden that debated Paul Ryan is gone and, unless some type of technology pops up between now and when he dies and it makes him more lucid and fluid and free flowing, that Joe Biden is just not going to return. But with the stakes being so low other bar being so low Joe Biden did what he needed to do in the state of the union. He was fiery, he and his responses.
Speaker 3:I'm actually not going to play the clip that I saw that was good only because that particular clip is 17 minutes long and I don't want to force people to spend 17 minutes listening to a say the union. They may or may not have already heard. So I'm going to play a shorter snippet of it and we'll give a little bit of analysis on the other side about a few highlights from this. Well, I would just say is a was a very fiery state of the union from Joe Biden. There's a lot of things that he did that I do also I want to discuss.
Speaker 5:He pressed Congress to beef up border security and approve more aid for our allies at war.
Speaker 6:He also wrote out some new proposals on taxes, aid to Gaza and much more.
Speaker 4:And, as you'd expect, his address is drawing rave reviews from Democrats and a lot of criticism from Republicans. Fox 13's political editor, craig Patrick, is in now to break it all down. Craig, we heard a lot tonight.
Speaker 5:We did very interesting as well.
Speaker 5:The president was very revved up, seemed to revel the cheers he was getting from Republicans and he really mixed up with them a more than a time or two and some really lively moments will take you through in just a moment.
Speaker 5:Of course, the president knows that he's facing questions about his age, so he borrowed a page from Reagan's playbook and trying to reframe that to his advantage, he said, for example, when you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever before. And from there he confronted Republicans, ribbing them repeatedly for defeating or not addressing some of his top priorities, like AT Crane and tour allies. And you can tell which themes he plans to press in the campaign trail by the themes he led off with tonight. That would be aid to our allies, the threat posed by the Capitol riots, his push also for abortion rights and a federal law to guarantee the right to abortion across the nation, a guaranteed right as well to in vitro fertilization. He also pressed his legislative accomplishments the CHIP's Act, which he signed, to expand high tech manufacturing, the bipartisan infrastructure law to improve our roads and other transportation systems. And he stressed the gains in our job market and our broader economy since he took office, which he claimed much of the media is not covering enough.
Speaker 1:And I came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in the nation's history. We have it doesn't make new, but news. In a thousand cities and towns, the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.
Speaker 5:And Biden knew that he was facing a divided Congress in a very tough crowd on the Republican side of the aisle and he addressed that again by engaging that side of the aisle over their policy disagreement several points and times. But one of the most striking moments was when Biden pressed Congress to pass the bipartisan plan to boost border security that President Trump, former President Trump opposed and the Trump's allies in Congress derailed.
Speaker 1:The result was a bipartisan bill with a tough set of border security forms we've ever seen. Oh, you don't think so. Oh, you don't like that bill. Huh, that bipartisan bill would hire 1,500 more security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges up, tackle the back load of two-minute cases, 4,300 more asylum officers and new policies so they can resolve cases in six months instead of six years now.
Speaker 5:And he kept going from there stating that they would have been more drug detection machines as part of the legislation that would have given him and other presidents the authority to temporarily shut down the border when illegal crossings are particularly high, and he noted, the Border Patrol Union and the Chamber of Commerce endorsed that plan. So in this, biden's really doing two things. He's obviously exerting a great deal of pressure or trying to try to get Congress to reconsider and take that back up, but it's also campaign season, as we now know that we have a very likely matchup with Biden and former President Trump. He's also taking the moment to criticize the former President of Chris there as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he came out on a couple of points there tonight, craig. As you pointed out, he also rolled out several new ideas for the coming year. But again, you know, given the calendar, which of those ideas are most likely to come together.
Speaker 5:The ones he doesn't need Congress for. For example, he's talking about building a port off the coast of Gaza to bring in more humanitarian relief. That's already in the works. But his other proposals of capping more drug costs for seniors and capping costs to $2,000 a year across the board for everybody for prescriptions, raising the federal minimum wage as tax proposals, increasing the corporate tax rate and new minimum tax on large businesses and billionaires Well, republican House leaders and the House Ways and Means Committee specifically already say those measures simply will not advance, not in this election year. Okay, craig, craig Pavrick, thank you.
Speaker 3:So, guys, so one thing that you did not hear that I do want to address about the State of the Union, and this is just me being honest about how this thing went, how it started. I was very uncomfortable with the notion that the State of the Union started off with not the needs of Americans and the American domestic policy, but the speech actually, if you heard it, started off with talking about Russia and Ukraine, and this was very. This perked my ears up, because it seemed like America, the American president of the State of the Union, was gearing us up to the same type of rhetoric that I heard when George Bush was president and Americans were being sold a bill of goods on foreign policy that it took us a few years later to discover we were wrong. We got sold bad intelligence, etc. And so that was point number one.
Speaker 3:Point number two that I thought was very different in this State of the Union was the amount of times that Joe Biden used the State of the Union, which is, you know, somewhat of a partisan type of thing, but I have never seen a State of the Union where the current president calls out the former president, and this happened time and time and time and time again, because Joe Biden kept saying my predecessor, my predecessor, my predecessor, and so, and it was just one of those things. I'm very America first type of person. I think that Americans pay absorbent taxes from which I'm not sure if they get a lot in return for those exorbitant taxes. And when it comes to how that money is going to be spent and distributed, amongst things, I believe it should start with the American people first. And so when I have a president who starts off the State of the Union with talking about a foreign country, it makes me think and I'm trying to be charitable here, but it makes me think that the Americans who are having a hard time right now are not the priority and they are kind of an afterthought.
Speaker 3:So, other than that thing that I had, I don't see really really main problems with what Joe Biden did. When I looked at the conservative analysis of what was being said, it was well, old man screams at the moon. You know, it was Jenner, etc. He was angry and I kind of say well, I mean, that's somewhat been the role that he's been sitting in for a while now.
Speaker 3:When he wants to be fiery, he's going to scream, he's going to, you know deliver it in that way, and I have seen some of my conservative friends, you know, kind of responding to this in a positive way, even though I don't think they're gonna vote for Joe Biden. But I did get this private message on the DeRome McClain Instagram page, so obviously that's kind of being hyperbolic and etc. But a lot of people, even though I, like I said they won't be voting for Joe Biden, was approving for the passion that it was delivered in the state of his union.
Speaker 3:When it comes to other news that I think that happened since we last spoke to each other, I think in the same thing is the Trump train and that is the fact that the judge in this trial which is, in my opinion, the most significant trial that was against the former president, donald Trump the judge throughout basically some of the most important charges that were facing the former president, and so, if that stands, I think that everything else is a wash. And that's just me being honest about it, because the other thing, the other trial, is the Stormy Daniels trial, which nobody cares about. So it was a good state of the union for Joe Biden and a good or I would I would say, a great legal win for former president Donald Trump as far as the serious charges that he was facing in Georgia, a lot of them being tossed out by the judge saying like look, it looks like that he could, it could seem like he did what you say that he did but basically saying they haven't provided enough evidence to to make him comfortable in pursuing or allowing the prosecutor to pursue those trials. So good, good news for Joe Biden as far as the state of the union, good news for Donald Trump as far as the serious of all the indictments. Now it Trump also appealed the EJ and Carol ruling. He posted the bond and appealed that decision.
Speaker 3:So it's gonna be it's it's gonna be a longer road than a lot of us may have wanted it to be, and don't blame that on Donald Trump, blame that on these prosecuted attorneys, blame that on Mary Garland. Like I said before, if you thought Trump was a threat to democracy, etc. Etc. Etc. You did not prove your point by waiting this long. It to charge former, the former president for any crimes, and I would also like to say this that includes precluding him from running from election in states. If you believe that he had committed an insurrection, you should have already litigated that the second he was out of power, not what he started running for president again. I take that that oozes of a type of a political corruption that I think Americans can see clearly, and then they're gonna respond viscerally.
Speaker 3:A negative to that, and I do understand that these decisions are being made by politicians, so I cannot expect politicians to not be political, but when we see the negative politics of it all, of course they're gonna call a spade a spade. Now there is something else that is is very interesting, and this is going to be I'm gonna try my best to do this long form, so this may be. This is this other time. This topic is important to me because it is something that is very important to the American people that I care about the most, and that is the seniors. I was raised by my grandparents and I have an affinity all my heroes are 60 and above, and so I am always worried about how we treat the least of these and how we treat elderly and conservative commentator and author Ben Shapiro somewhat stepped into a firestorm of a controversy because he said something about Social Security and because I do have the time, I don't want to character what he said.
Speaker 3:I want you to hear Ben Shapiro saying what he thinks about Social Security, I want us to get into some analysis of it for me and some other commentators, and I want us to wrestle with what Social Security actually is, what it should be or should exist at all. So we're gonna go to this conversation now about Social Security and Social Security in the situation that it's in. Is it sustainable, etc. Etc. I'm also gonna tell you before I give and get to the commentary. Ben Shapiro already talks fast and I'm speeding up the audio a little bit because I want to get through the analysis. I'm not gonna speed it up crazy fast, but Ben Shapiro is historically known for talking fast and I want to get get him to speak, but I'm also gonna speed it up a little bit as well. So here's, ben. I blew up the internet. I believe the internet is something that I said on the show.
Speaker 8:What exactly did I say that? Look the internet like touch the political third rail. I talked about Social Security. Now I know you're thinking what's so spicy about Social Security, and I will admit I was thinking the same thing, because there are a few simple facts of the matter with regard to Social Security. One, we don't have the money for it. It's a Ponzi scheme. And two, with regard to sort of the personal decision to retire, very often when people retire, they're making a bad decision. This is what I said.
Speaker 8:I want to play you the clip, what I said yesterday, and then I want to discuss why exactly this was so controversial, and I think it goes deep to the root of something that's happening both the right and left, which is this weird idea that work is somehow demeaning and bad and terrible and then somehow purpose and fulfillment don't come from work and don't come from church and don't come from family. So where they come from, that's a broader argument. We'll get to that in a moment. I want to play you this clip because this apparently set a thousand hearts of flutter and let's be real about this. It's insane that we haven't raised the retirement age in the United States. It's totally crazy, joe Biden. If that were the case, joe Biden should not be running for president. Joe Biden is 81 years old. The retirement age in the United States, and which you start to receive Social Security and you are eligible for Medicare, is 65. Joe Biden has technically been eligible for Social Security and Medicare for 16 years and he wants to continue in office until he is 86, which is 19 years. That's when you would be eligible for retirement. No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old.
Speaker 8:Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem. Everybody that I know was who is elderly, who has retired, is dead within five years. If you talk to people who are elderly and they lose their purpose in life by losing their job and stop working, things go to hell in a handbasket real quick. But put all of that aside, okay, so those are two arguments, right? So those are two arguments. One is we have to raise the retirement age and two is that, as a general rule, it's not a good personal decision for people to retire early and I say even right there, unless we're talking about people who suffer a physical or mental malady as a result of continued work. So, for example, you're a bricklayer and now you're 65 years old and your back is going. Obviously you're gonna want to retire for being a bricklayer because you have a physical malady, which I literally said on the show yesterday and everybody is ignoring.
Speaker 8:But let's go through these arguments one by one, because the first argument about raising the retirement age or privatizing social security or changing the social security system, this is considered the third rail of politics and, as I said in the show yesterday, donald Trump hasn't touched it. He's the first Republican in a long time to basically said the entitlements are off the table, we're not gonna do anything about them. And I've said before, that's a smart political move, but smart political moves that aren't necessarily good for the country. Both parties now argue can't touch social security, we can't touch Medicare, we can't touch Medicaid. Entitlement programs basically have to stay. The problem with that is that, of course, they're all going to go bankrupt. So politicians obviously have an incentive to keep kicking the cans down the road and pretending that we have unlimited borrowing power and limited money to pay for a ballooning public debt. That, of course, is their incentive structure. But I'm not running for office so I can tell you the truth, which is that if we don't raise the retirement age or privatize social security over time, make any changes to social security, we will go and solve it.
Speaker 8:Social security is not, in fact, a lockbox. I saw a lot of tweets yesterday for people saying I paid into social security. I'm just taking out what I got it. You're not. You absolutely are not. Government stole your money and paid it to somebody else and now they're stealing somebody else's money and paying it to you and I promise you that whatever you paid in is certainly not we're getting out. You're getting out way less. In my case, you're getting way less in social security. If ever you receive it, then you paid in and in many cases, you're receiving far more. So my grandmother, for example, receiving social security, got way more than she paid in, because social security is not a defined. It is not a defined contributions plan. It's defined benefits plan and social security tells you much you receive, but it has nothing to do with how much you put in.
Speaker 8:Social security is a pyramid scheme.
Speaker 8:It is a Ponzi scheme. We are taking out trillions of dollars in debt to fund people retiring from work who are not somehow unable to work. That was what I'm making is that many of the people we are paying not to work right now by 65 years old. Yes, they paid into the system, but that is because the system should not have taken their money in the first place. You should not have your money taken away from you by the federal government and then spent somewhere else and then later somebody else has to fill you in. You should be able to keep your own money.
Speaker 8:That's how you plan for retirement and in fact, even the name social security is a euphemism, because originally, what social security was was an old-age pension. That's what it was and in fact, if you look at the history of social security, what you see the history of retirement social security one of the things that you see is that it was an attempt to get older workers off the payrolls to make room for younger workers. The first full social security scheme was put in place by Otto von Bismarck in Germany and was a way of clearing the older payrolls of older workers because they weren't as effective and, in fact, older workers bought it. But in any case, when you look in America at the history of old-age pensions, what you see is in 1862, when the life expectancy was 39, there were some pensions that you could apply for if you were a civil war veteran or if you were disabled, which can make some sense to about people are physically disabled. In 1890, when the life expectancy was 44, the laws amended to include disabled civil war veterans who were disabled for any reason. In 1906, life expectancy 50, law was amended to include old age. Now why am I using life expectancy statistics? I'll get into that in a moment, because I've seen some community notes talking about the fact that if you make it to 50 or 60 and it'll be 1906, you're likely to live till 75 or 79 or whatever. That's the wrong statistic. I'll explain why in a second.
Speaker 8:The Social Security Act is signed in a law by FDR in 1935. Again, life expectancy at that time was 60 and it kicked in social security at 65 and it created a federal safety net for the elderly, unemployed, disadvantaged Americans because of the Great Depression. And again, the main stipulation was to pay financial benefits to retirees over the age of 65 based on lifetime payroll tax contributions. But of course the original contributions had never occurred, so the early social security recipients were not actually getting out what they paid in. As there's no social security tax. With social security now, the Social Security Trust Fund, which doesn't really exist again. All that money was paid out before. It's based on new taxes. That Social Security Trust Fund is set to empty in 2037, at which point taxes will be enough to pay for only 76% of scheduled benefits, at which time all the benefits are gonna get slashed.
Speaker 8:Why is that happening? The answer is demographics. In 1960, approximately five workers covered the benefits of one retiree, so five workers paying into the system that covered the benefits of one retiree. Today, two workers covered the benefits of one retiree. That is unsustainable. Our demographic pyramid is upside down in the United States. We have too many old people. We don't have enough young workers, which means that the Ponzi scheme is collapsing.
Speaker 8:According to the Peter Chipp Peterson Foundation, both the declining ratio of workers to beneficiaries creates financial difficulties for social security. In 1960, the Social Security Program had revenues of 12 billion and outlays just shy of 12 billion. By 2021, a smaller ratio led to outlays of 1.1 trillion dollars, exceeding revenues of a little under 1.1 trillion dollars, and that gap is going to continue to grow by 2034. Last year before the funds are expected to become depleted, the Social Security's trustee expect the cost will exceed income by 437 billion dollars. When those trust funds are depleted, benefits will then be limited by the income assigned to the program, apps and changes to law. Benefits will be reduced by 20%.
Speaker 8:So again, why is this happening? Two demographic factors. One people did not have enough kids. You can support this pyramid scheme so long as there are enough young people who are there to work to support the elderly, as filtered through government programs. But there aren't. People are having fewer babies to. People are, in fact, living longer. Around 1960, that was the end of baby boom the average number of children born to a woman is 3.6. Today that number is 1.6, which is not replacement level in 1968. If you reach 65, if you reach retirement age, you're expected to live to about 80. Today, you're expected to live to about 85 again.
Speaker 8:According to Cato Institute, the cost of Social Security to the American taxpayer, excluding disability, in 2022 was over a trillion dollars. By 2033 that's gonna be two trillion dollars a year. Well, well over 2.1 trillion dollars a year. In that year, borrowing authority for Social Security is exhausted under law. So unless Congress acts, benefits get slash 23%.
Speaker 8:As far as the generalized debt problems with Social Security. Medicare and Social Security are now responsible for 95% of all long-term American unfunded obligations. So when you hear people say that is the defense department that is bankrupting the country, that is wrong. It is Medicare and Social Security. Social Security is already responsible for about 11% of the entire 2023 deficit and, according to the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees, this is them people. These are the people who run the thing. According to them, medicare and Social Security their unfunded obligations which is about the 75-year unfunded obligation and it's not funded by any of the law today exceeds $78 trillion. $78 trillion, which is three times all the goods and services produced in the United States last year. So, in other words, this ballooning Social Security program is bankrupt. It is. It's just a question of when the bankruptcy becomes evident to everyone.
Speaker 8:So that is where we are, and so argument number one, which is that we have to change Social Security, because it's ridiculous that people are retiring at the age of 65 and then receiving benefits for legitimately 20 years, and that's going to bankrupt the country and it's already bankrupting the taxpayer. That's obviously true. Everyone knows that Democrats and Republicans know what they just lie to you Like. Well, why don't politicians say this, because they'll lose, because they know that you don't want to purify it. Because there's somebody who tweeted at me yesterday, without all of this, and he suggested well, you know, I paid for my parents and now it's my children's friends' turn to pay. That's not the way that society is supposed to work. I want my children to pay for me. My goal is to be able to invest enough so that I can cover my children, not the other way around. And, by the way, it is worth noting at this point that it will not be our children paying for us. It will be debt paying for us or immigrants paying for us as we retire.
Speaker 8:Okay, so then we get to the second argument, and this is the one that apparently set people off really a lot. And the second argument that I make is that I think that retirement generally, for a lot of people, is stupid. Okay, here's what I mean by that. So I don't mean that you're retiring from a job that's backbreaking. Labor is stupid. That's your personal decision. The argument that I'm making is sort of twofold One, that the government has no actual obligation to fund your retirement if it allows you to keep your money in the first place. If it stole your money, then I understand People who had their money stolen by the government. They want their money back. I get it totally.
Speaker 8:Then there's the question of what retirement actually constitutes. There seems to be this idea about that retirement is natural, you hit 65 and you go sit on a beach somewhere for the next 20 years of your life, and whether that is publicly funded or privately funded, the point that I was making yesterday is that I do not think that is a general rule. It is good for people to consider themselves retired from the world. I don't think that is good. Retirement, particularly in the post familial, post church age, harms mental health. It rob people of purpose.
Speaker 8:Again, I'm not saying that you can't retire If you want to. If you have the money to do so, go for it if you want to. And I'm also not saying you should be forced not to retire if you can afford to retire. I'm making the case that actually early retirement, by the data, tends to harm your health, that working longer tends to be good for you. That is the argument that I'm making Again, not that you should be forced to work if you don't want to and you can afford to do it or your family will take care of you.
Speaker 8:The argument that I was making is that when you are 65 years old, if you retire, if you make that decision to retire, that's a decision that you should take really seriously. And this bizarre idea that the best thing you can do so much so that the government should sponsor it is retire. And when I say retire, I don't mean get an alternative job. Okay, you're not retired if you quit your job at 65 or you are forcibly retired by your company at 65, and then you take social security and then you have another job, which is what a lot of people do. You're not retired. You're retired from that job. You're not a retired person.
Speaker 8:Okay, the effects of the retirement I'm talking about is you retire from your job and all jobs and you live on your pension or your social security. That tends not to be good for people in terms of health. According to the BBC, research from the Institute of Economic Affairs suggests that, while retirement may initially benefit health by reducing stress and creating time for other activities, adverse effects increase when longer retirement goes on. In fact, this study found that retirement increases the chances of suffering from clinical depression by around 40% of having at least one diagnosed physical illness by about 60% and of course that's not particularly surprising because for a lot of people they find purpose in the thing that they've been doing for the past 40 years. By the way, that you could fill that gap with a few things you retired from your job or you were forced into retirement by your company and you'd fill that gap in a few ways. One would be friendships.
Speaker 8:There's only one problem the United States. Friendship has been declining for decades. Robert Putnam wrote Bowling Alone. Nobody even has social clubs anymore. Church, which is another place that people tended to put their time in retirement, has been declining for decades, so people don't know what to do with themselves. Family has been retiring, has been declining for decades. In fact, actually it's an ironic byproduct of social security. Family has been declining because it used to be before social security. What happened to grandma when it was time for grandma to retire? Or grandpa? They lived with you. Grandma and grandpa lived in the house with you and you helped your parents out. That's what it was about and that created intergenerational contact and point of contact that was fulfilling for grandma and grandpa and was fulfilling for kids and grandkids, because then you got the wisdom of grandma and grandpa has been completely destroyed by social security.
Speaker 8:Now the American vision is you hit 65 or you hit 70, whatever it is, you retire and then we shuffle you off to the villages or some old age home or something and listen. If you want to be there, that's fine. I mean, it's a free country. But the idea that this is like the ideal form of what 80 year old life looks like is you don't see your kids, you don't see your grandkids and you live in a home by yourself. That data do not support the idea that this is wonderful for people, and it is worth noting that when this sort of idea was proposed, elderly people actually revolted against it. They didn't like it. And that's the story of the retirement of the elderly people. And this columnist points out that many, many people who were elderly did not in fact like doing this quote.
Speaker 8:What used to mean going to bed suddenly meant banishment to an empty stage of life called retirement. If people were not going to work, what were they going to do? Sit in a rocking chair. Eleanor Roosevelt thought so, but old people love their own things even more than young people do. It means so much to sit in the Chamele, same chair you sat in for a great many years. You sat in 1934, but she was wrong. Most retired people wished they could work.
Speaker 8:The problem was still acute in 1951 when the Corning Company convened a round table to figure out how to make retirement more popular. At that conference, santa Rama Rallan, author and student of Eastern and Western cultures, complained Americans did not have the capacity to enjoy doing nothing, so you had retirement communities that sprang up, and those retirement communities were essentially fill your time with playing golf or whatever. But again, has that cured the problem? The answer, by the data, is really no. Study from the Journal of Healthcare, september 2020, prevalence of depression in retirees met an analysis. Depression is more frequent in retirees, with mandatory retirement, retirement due to illness and anticipated retirement presenting higher levels of this disease.
Speaker 8:The health role in the psychoeducational approach is highlighted in 41.6%, with almost one third of retirees suffering from depression. It is necessary to implement prevention and early detection measures to approach a public health problem. This study, by the way, suggests that retirement is a transition which occurs in the last stage of life that is characterized by the ceasing of work and, with that, a loss of routine and social relations, role, status, accomplishments and aspirations. This implies changing the lifestyle adopted during many years in the working stage and supposes a phenomenon that can alter the psychosocial realm of the retiree. Additionally, the aging process supposes diverse changes in health and it would lead to the decline of individuals who suffer it, altering their self-image, self-esteem, autonomy and functionality. A majority of individuals understand the transition from being active in working life to retirement as the process by which they start to become old, which generates feelings of uselessness, thus predisposing them to depression. Another journal article from the Journal of Population, aging, work, retirement and Depression found a considerable depression. By the way, a difference in the depression rates in men who retired 24% said that they were depressed, compared to currently employed about 6%. They found that women significantly less of a difference. Why? Because a lot of women work part-time and so they were already engaged in stuff that they were doing outside of work.
Speaker 8:2012, a paper Transition to Retirement and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease from Social Science and Medicine. They found those who retired were 40% more likely to have had a heart attack or stroke than those who were still working. Another paper the Association of Retirement Age with Mortality a population-based longitudinal study among older adults in the United States. This is from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Quote Early retirement may be a risk factor for mortality and prolonged working life may provide survival benefits. Among American adults, that same study found among healthy retirees, a one-year older age of retirement was associated with an 11% lower risk of all-cause mortality. Again that same study, by the way, one of the researchers explained that delayed retirement is the secret to a longer life. You define retirement as quote the first year. People responded to the survey saying they were completely retired.
Speaker 8:Hey, so there's some counter-arguments to this argument that I'm making, which is that if you have a personal choice as to whether to retire or not retire, you should seriously consider not retiring. And by retiring again, I mean like retiring from all work, not getting an alternative job. If you retired as a bricklayer and you became a tutor, that doesn't mean that you're retired. You're still working, okay. So here are the counter-arguments. The counter-arguments are that you should be able to retire from your job so you can do fulfilling things. Now, again, if your argument is that you should retire from a job you don't like, to take a job you do like, that's not retirement, that's just changing jobs. If you are retiring and somebody else is done. By the way, your choice has externality. Somebody else is paying for your retirement. Also, you should find something that actually is fulfilling to do, but the problem is, as I mentioned before, society has now removed many of those fulfilling things to do.
Speaker 8:Okay, then there's another bizarre argument that I'm hearing a lot, and that argument is that it is elitist to say that people should, as a general matter, continue to work, because as long as you are healthy, as long as you're healthy mentally and physically, there's something good about working. I'm not sure why that's elitist. It seems to me that that's true, and there are a bunch of people who are like well, that's because you're not a bricklayer. Again, I said yesterday, if you're a bricklayer and you hurt your back, it's a completely different thing from a person who was a bricklayer, worked their way up to the management level of the bricklaying company, is still healthy and then is forced to retire or decides to retire. Not the same thing at all. It's not that health problem. Health problems are an entirely different category. In fact, if you have a serious health problem, we're not talking about retirement, we're talking about disability, because if you break your back at the age of 50, we have disability and it seems like we probably should, not at the federal level, but at the state and local level. We should have support systems for that.
Speaker 8:But that's not the same thing, this left-wing argument that has now horseshoeed around to some parts of the right, and that is that work is joyless and sold ending, particularly blue collar work, which actually seems elitist to me. I mean, I hear a lot of people who are like well, of course you want to continue working until you're old and gray, but that's because you sit behind a desk and you talk yes, I like my job, that's true, I love my job and I've worked hard to get this job. We employ 300 people at this company, which means that we are responsible for the support of thousands of dependents. I love that, that's great. I plan to work until I can no longer work, literally until I can't. But I don't understand why that wouldn't also be true of, say, an electrician, or say, a plumber, or a guy who started off as a bricklayer in a bricklaying business now owns the bricklaying business. That seems kind of actually elitist to me. At the same logic, a fulfillment doesn't apply to people who are blue collar. I know a lot of people who are electricians and are approaching retirement age. Many of them don't want to retire. They like being an electrician. In fact, they feel useless if they do retire.
Speaker 8:And here's my real question If you really believe that work is inherently degrading and joyless, even in certain sectors of work, it's inherently degrading, joyless and terrible. So then what does an ideal retirement age look like? What you're really arguing against is the work itself. You're not really arguing about the retirement age. What you're really arguing against is the work itself. What does an ideal retirement age look like? If you're in favor of this, does a retirement age look like 21? I mean, that's when you're young and you're healthy and you can really enjoy your retirement. Why not push it to 21? Why exactly do we have to wait until you're 65? You're feeling beat up and old in order to allow you to retire? If it's quote what allowing you to retire Now, my point is no one's quote what allowing you to retire or shouldn't be. It's your decision whether to retire and it should be your decision whether to retire.
Speaker 8:The question of whether the taxpayer subsidizes that is an entirely different issue. I don't think that it's the government's business to subsidize your retirement. I'm not talking about people who are on the cost of receiving social security, by the way, because the government did steal your money and presumably there will have to be a phase out with regard to the age provisions of social security. What I am saying is that, as a general ideological matter, you should be allowed to keep your own money. There has never been, as my friend Matt Walsh does, a greater robbery of the middle class than social security. They literally take working families and they tax them and they steal their money and then they use that to pay elderly pensioners. Many of them are upper income. That is wrong. It is morally wrong. It is a Ponzi scheme for political benefit of the politicians. That's what it is. That was the point that I was making yesterday and again, I think this goes to a deeper ideological point that I was making just a moment ago, which is what do you think?
Speaker 8:Work is One of the fascinating things that some of the people were sort of on the right on this typically if you consider right wing of the political spectrum who were very upset with me yesterday. They were saying you don't respect the blue collar worker because you're saying that people quote unquote don't deserve to retire. My point is that I don't think that retirement is a good personal decision. I think it is to deserve. About it, you deserve whatever you can pay for. As far as what you deserve from the public, from the guy who is still working, that's a completely different story. But it is interesting to me that many of the same people who will, for example, object to automated technologies because they say that it kills jobs and people need jobs If you're universal basic income only, you can't just cut somebody a welfare check and find a sense of fulfillment to that Suddenly believe that the logical versus itself when you hit 65.
Speaker 8:When you hit 65, they can cut you a welfare check in the form of social security and that somehow this is more fulfilling than when you were 30 and they were cutting you a welfare check in the job. You can't have it both ways. You can't have Jobs are good and also jobs are bad. You gotta pick one.
Speaker 8:And my general perception is that human beings like to work in one form or another and that human beings are really not made to quote unquote retire in the way that we think of it, like sitting on a pool deck somewhere for 20 years. That's not what human beings are created for. From a biblical perspective, you might say thou shalt work six days a week and on the seventh thou shalt rest. You might say that as long as you still have your health and as long as you still have your mental aptitude. It seems to me like most people want to work and should, and that doesn't mean the government forces them to not talk about sending you to the salt mines when you're seven years old. I'm just bewildered by this perception that that somehow can lead to sentiment, and the point that I make means that I believe it is human nature for people to want to feel productive, useful and purposeful.
Speaker 3:And if you can't find that production and purpose anywhere, else than a job, which seems to be the way that it works in America these days, because, again, church and family have disappeared then you're gonna have a bigger problem than you think when you quote, unquote, retire. So look, I played that clip in long form for two reasons, once you guys can kind of know the flavor of commentary that I listened to when I produced the show. And just on that vein, when it comes to what we would consider conservatism, etc. I think that Ben Shapiro is one of the younger conservatives who is one of the best to deliver a long form argument for a certain set of conservative principles. I have put Ben Shapiro in the neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party simply because of his foreign policy. I would put some of the other conservatives who I listened to in the more traditional form would be the economist Glenn Lowry and the commentator George Will. I do listen to Sean Hannity because he's got one of the highest rated shows and cannot ignore what conservative commentators are saying, because that is more than likely what a conservative audience is going to pair it. So I wanted to be able to basically let you hear that Now.
Speaker 3:With that being said, here's the problem and, I think, some things that have been laid out were factual, accurate and true.
Speaker 3:So this is where I agree that you may be surprised by this.
Speaker 3:I agree that there has been a narrative that work in its very nature is undignified and demeaning and exploitative, and I do think that comes largely from the left and a more the critique of labor.
Speaker 3:I also agree and this may be with some people including me may call antidote evidence to the fact that a lot of people who retire that I have personally known and this is from the military standpoint. I have known personally people who are good military leaders, chiefs, senior chiefs, master chiefs and I'll even add in their first class petty officers who did 20 years of service, 25 years of service, 30 years of service. I have seen time and time again master chiefs so and so retires and master chief so and so has a heart attack at his dead three years later. I have seen senior chief so and so retire, senior chief so and so is dead after five years. I have personally personally had somebody who was my senior chief who looked very young, very favorable, somewhat more emotional than I am, and that's kind of one of my flaws that everybody talks about I'm kind of a robot.
Speaker 3:But anyway, when I was in Chin-A, korea complex Chin-A's or whatever, so anyway, and already gone already, and he wasn't in his 60s, he wasn't in his 70s, he wasn't in his 80s gone, and so I have heard the argument that retirement kills, retirement kills, retirement kills. I also identify with Ben Shapiro when he talks about the fact that, when he talks about the fact that there is a biblical reason or justification why retirement is not a great thing either and I'm going to layer a bit more into that after we get into a bit more analysis on this, I want to get some responses from some other commentators about what Ben said. So we're going to go to another conservative and a leftist, segra Ungenetti and Ryan Grimm. And of course, as I discussed before, I also support other independent media sources, not just my own, and one of those is breaking points in. That is where I'm going to get this audio now. So let's hear what they have to say about that commentary from Ben Shapiro.
Speaker 7:As he says in this clip we're about to play, he blew up the internet by being a little twerk, suggesting that old people need to work longer and also coming after Social Security, which comes after. Donald Trump very stupidly, in my opinion, just pragmatically from a political perspective suggested that actually yes. So he told CNBC yes, there are ways that we can cut Social Security and Medicare, which is CNBC has been slobbering for those cuts, and the thing that people liked about Trump was that he was willing to tell CNBC no, you owe that to people, you're not taken away from them.
Speaker 3:Now Ben Shapiro talked about this, about the who likes who, and what Ben Shapiro said, which I think is true, is they like that because that is the correct political answer, but he postulates that that is not the correct economic answer.
Speaker 7:Shapiro jumps in and sees an opportunity to go back to this old conservative kind of art of. We're going to do this and actually we're finally going to come to these entitlements. Let's play a little bit of our man Ben.
Speaker 8:Shapiro. So yesterday I apparently blew up the internet. I blew up the internet because of something that I said on this show. What exactly did I say that blew up the internet? Well, I touched the political third rail. I talked about Social Security.
Speaker 8:Now I know what you're thinking. What's so spicy about Social Security? And I will admit I was thinking the same thing, because there are a few simple facts of the matter with regard to Social Security. One, we don't have the money for it and it's a Ponzi scheme. And two, with regard to sort of the personal decision to retire, very often when people retire, they're making a bad decision and let's be real about this, it's insane that we haven't raised the retirement age in the United States. It's totally crazy, Joe Biden. If that were the case, Joe Biden should not be running for president. Joe Biden is 81 years old. The retirement age in the United States, and when you start to receive Social Security and you are eligible for Medicare, is 65. Joe Biden has technically been eligible for Social Security and Medicare for 16 years and he wants to continue an office until he is 86, which is 19 years past when you would be eligible for retirement.
Speaker 8:No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea, unless you have some sort of health problem. Everybody that I know who is elderly who has retired is dead within five years. And if you talk to people who are elderly and they lose their purpose in life by losing their job and they stop working, things go to hell in a handbasket, real quick it was an attempt to get older workers off the payrolls to make room for younger workers.
Speaker 8:The first and full Social security scheme was put in place by Otto von Bismarck in Germany and there's a way of clearing the older payrolls of older workers.
Speaker 7:Because, they weren't as effective and in fact, older workers bought it All right, there's a lot going on there, ryan, yeah, and first of all, he could just have googled Social Security retirement age at 67. They bumped it up. That's correct. It's not 65. I just a weird like mistake in there. Secondly, and I think we put yeah, please make the community know element up here. Good, good, community note what. One of the reasons that you have such low life expectancy From back in the day is infant mortality. You know you go back and look at like during the time of the founding of the country. You know life expectancy is like 40 or something and you're like what.
Speaker 3:And then you're like wait a minute, but Ben Frank so when they talk about community notes, that's actually something that X does. I don't. I'm not on X a lot. I post the show on there and then I get off. I may like key Foskey may post something Josh got. May post something Grace to you may post something John Biber, somebody like that. I fall, I'm gonna like, but they post, I'm gonna be if I like it and then I'm gonna go to my day. But but the community knows said his life expectancy was shorter because of infant mortality.
Speaker 3:Adults life expectancy for someone who was 20 and 1935 when the FICA was passed and lived to 65 in 1970 would be 79 years for men, 83 for women. It has not changed much. So that was a community knows that they were addressing.
Speaker 7:Franklin was like Signing, how does this possible? And it turns out that when you read further, like they had 10 children, only five lived past the age of three or four. You're like, oh I see, so the average is enough. Now, if you make it into adulthood, then your life expectancy at the time was, you know, close to 69. Basically it hasn't risen much and actually life expectancy over the last Couple years is dipping back downward. So you know he should actually adjust his talking points.
Speaker 6:Let me add on some reading back. Often people will say that's because of Kobe. That's absolutely not true. We've done multiple monologues here on the subject.
Speaker 7:It has been ticking down since 2017 and unfortunately it's actually over, yeah, overdoses, because you're losing a hundred thousand people plus a year.
Speaker 6:you have the age of 20 exactly. So you have fentanyl beam and number one cause of, or overdosing, the number one cause of death for people who are what is like 20 to 55 prime age, working years. On top of you have horrible chronic health conditions and Obesity. So you put that all together our society is on like a Soviet-esque decline. But somebody.
Speaker 7:Let's talk about the lack of any imagination in the mind of Ben Shapiro, I think it's. It is true that there are people who get their Meaning through their routine of going to work and coming home, then the weekend, and then they retire and they're and they're lost, like I think that I think he's probably more true for people like us, right, it's yeah, even even people who you know work manual jobs.
Speaker 6:I'm saying that's a kind of an important distinction, I guess, me to the hero element.
Speaker 7:But the answer to that is not to say well, don't ever stop that routine and drive you, drive yourself until you are in the grave. It is what's wrong with all of this. Like, let's let's find more spiritual value and spiritual doesn't have to be religious at all. Let's just find more meaning in in our daily lives and our social relations, in in the way that we not just work but also play, and the way that we love each other as a community, as a family, etc.
Speaker 6:Like let's have better lives, our entire lives one of the reasons why I think retirement age is so or sorry Retirement, social security and all that is so imperative is that we have a huge manual labor Underclass in this country of which their body literally gets broken down. And if you look at some of the poverty statistics from the 1930s is Horrifying. I know that an ante in all those it's like it's it Vow. It kind of popularized this image that it was working age people who are in Hooverville's, and that is certainly true to some extent, but a lot of people who are starving to death and dying. They were just old yes, they're pensioners, I mean, and what I mean that they got. They went broke, their bank were gone and these people guys, they died of literal starvation because they were so poor and they could not go or even qualify under this.
Speaker 6:And then, finally, there's a basic aspect of fairness. I've been paying in this damn program, yeah, my entire life. Every time I look at my paycheck I remember the very first time I get. I got what is that? I said what the is this like a shit, you know? And then I was like, oh, it's social security. I'm like, okay, but that's part of the thing is that every American who works in this country. We have paid into this system right, fairly or not. You you can say reform, etc. I'm like no, no, no, you took my little. You took a hell of a lot of my money over the years. Not even close to what I'm gonna get back out of it. At the very least I'm gonna get something. So the idea that it's going to get abolished is completely.
Speaker 7:Outrageous. And the idea that it's a Ponzi scheme is also just factually incorrect. Like ask Ben Shapiro, you name another Ponzi scheme that hasn't missed a payment in 81 years like this it's a sustainable program, right, and we because and you know how I can say that we have sustained it for 81 years we can. We can continue to sustain it. If you need to make some tweaks and Ben Shapiro has to pay a little bit more into it to help Some, some other people, fine, that's different. But to do your point, there is still a word kind of in our Vernacular that that comes from that period before social security, and the word is the poor house. Yes, that's you hear from your parents, your grandparents You're gonna put me in the poor house.
Speaker 7:The poor house was an actual thing and it was basically a charitable run Organization. Sometimes we get a little bit of money from the town or from the city of the state when, when elderly people could no longer make income, they would just get put in the poor house. These were the most decrepit, disgusting, degrading, undignified places that you could put elderly people. And the other place and I interviewed Dingell about this, who, whose father, like, was the author of the Social Security Act. He said when he was a kid his house was filled with dingles and other Polish relatives.
Speaker 7:What would happen is Everybody would just move into a house that had a little bit of room. That was it. You had the poor house and you had elderly people moving in with whatever cousins, nephews, nieces or grandchildren or anybody else that could take them in. If that's how you want to do it like, if you want to have a multi-generational home where you know the Like, the mom and the dad are supporting the children and the grandparents, go ahead, you should do that. If you want to do it. They were, everybody was forced to do it.
Speaker 6:Social Security is around the world, the greatest poverty reduction program that has ever existed in human history. Let me get on to talk specifically to that 42 40.2 percent of people who are older and eligible for Social Security. Their only income is Social Security. Those people, they were tired house. Yeah, I mean they're gonna die poor. They're literally gonna die Without Social Security and Medicare. Now I want to be clear. That's not a good situation and if you are my age, or you know your age, ryan, please stay for retirement, please.
Speaker 6:I'm begging you because you don't want to be in this position. That said, 40% of the country is so. Clearly we're screwing up and we've done a hell of a lot wrong in terms of setting and financially educating people, but it is what it is. We're gonna let these people just die, you know, in a complete and in obscurity.
Speaker 7:You cut a couple hundred dollars from them just to say a bunch of hero money on his taxes. The choices that they then have to make are just brutal. It's that and then Ben would never have any idea about that type of a choice.
Speaker 6:The other thing that they point out is that so 40%, but actually more than 50% of people 65 or older receive at least 50%, then all their income After age 67 from Social Security. So then now imagine that, as you just said, you know, we couple cut a hundred bucks. 5% doesn't sound like a lot to you or I, when the price of eggs goes up by 20.
Speaker 1:Yeah it actually does make a huge difference.
Speaker 6:A lot of these people also live by themselves or, you know, in soul household. You come couple that with a lot of these nursing homes and see you know the Medicare fraud and all that stuff that goes on. It's not an easy life to be just be living purely on the government again. Why, I'm begging you, please take some responsibility and try and save a retirement, but if you do find yourself in this situation, you're paying for your breaking point stuff though.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, of course I would never advise that, but yeah but say first you know I want to be in this position and I really hope that nobody is.
Speaker 6:I wouldn't hope I wish it on anybody, but we have to deal with reality. 40, 50% of the country is living in this position. Well, now, what I think we have. You know, look, we have a well-defined program here and again. All those people at least you know the way the program is signed they pay into it. We're all paying into it. It would be outrageous to rob us of the similar thing. It also comes to a matter of emphasis, which is what Mike Cernovich kind of put put, and I really love this framing. Let's put this up there on the screen. He says reminder bench fear. I advocated for every war in the Middle East. When the rich kids of DC, the America, can't afford foreign aid and foreign wars, then we can maybe talk about making grandma star until then Thanks.
Speaker 6:I totally agree. You want to save money. The Biden administration Just put out a defense budget of 842 billion dollars. 842 billion, that would be almost nearly a hundred billion dollar increase in what just five years that's?
Speaker 7:that's a lot of money, right, a lot of money, that's. That seems easy to cut there, yeah, isn't it? And if, if, buying were smart and he would lean into this, and you are seeing the Biden campaign hitting, hitting Trump on this and you've actually seen the Trump campaign what one of their responses was they? They tweeted out an article of mine that I wrote in 2020 that said that said that Joe Biden has been trying to cut social security. It's true, yeah, and it's true he was, but he is a politician and he saw which way the wind is blowing there now about 210 Democrats who have signed on to a social security expansion bill in the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi kept it off the floor because she is at heart and austerity and wouldn't wouldn't, probably would have passed if she would just put it on the floor. John John Larson's bill that's political goal for Democrats.
Speaker 6:No not all kind of expansion. What does it?
Speaker 7:do. It means like on the lower end, 50% and below, would get actually more social security in their checks. And then it it closes some of the the tax loopholes in order to make and it makes it sustainable for like another 50, 75 years. But people like Ben Shapiro would have to pay more in, and so people like Ben Shapiro would rather it be cut and you just keep working and but he's trying to pretend he's actually doing it for your own good, because it's spiritually and psychically he's just nervous about your soul.
Speaker 6:Well, this is crazy, so I didn't even realize this. The average social security benefit in 2023 is $1,700 a month yeah. In a medium to high cost of living area. That's gonna be stretching it. That's really tough.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we're living a rural in place, if you want to make it, which would, which is hard to get around. Yeah, the whole thing is, people are screwed.
Speaker 6:You can't. There's no way. You're making a car payment on $1,700, with all those other things too. That's another thing Let me just advocate for buy your house, make sure you pay off your mortgage, make sure you have retirement.
Speaker 7:It's another, and this is something that doesn't get talked about enough in the squeeze on the economy, so many people Our age are helping their parents out.
Speaker 6:That's true, that's really unfortunate.
Speaker 7:Well, look, as you can see, you do it because you you know we're not talking about the right thing to do, but it hurts people are not living large.
Speaker 6:What?
Speaker 1:is it high on the hog, high on the?
Speaker 6:hog. Here we're talking about 17, 1800 bucks for an average check, let's say, a married household, that's only 3600. I mean that's 30. What is that 3600? It's like 40 grand or something like that. After tax that's below the average income actually for a household in the United States. So just reminder you know and remember what realist program is, what the implications of all that would look like. I understand, you know. You know people don't want to pay or think it's unfair and all that. And I think there's still a lot we could do in terms of making the Social Security benefits actually go a lot farther and give people some Optionality. But the program itself is a hundred percent gold and it should say where it is.
Speaker 3:Hey so yeah. So again, that was breaking points. Show that I contribute to. You were listening to say gear on genetic and the other person was Ryan Grimm and I Think there's some significant arguments that have been made about this.
Speaker 3:I do think that the program, you know, last time I checked is gonna go Insolving our big rub. To have you like to call it in around 2037, I think was the number. I also think that, no, maybe some tweaks would change that. I do think that it would maybe income Caps. So I saw, I think, your transaction taxes, if that's the route we're gonna go.
Speaker 3:But I also 100% fully understand the side of the argument who says I'm paying, you know, 20, sometimes 30 years, you know into this program that I'm not gonna Receive, that I'm not gonna get much out of you, and and so I think that's why people have a visceral reaction when people talk about Things like raising the retirement age, because one, you know, the obvious thing would be because the people who normally Vote are older voters and you are taking money from them by telling them they got to do it a little bit longer and I think, whether it's economically intelligent or not, you are taking something from people who Vote the most, and I don't think that that is a winning strategy. Now, like I said before, when it comes to a spiritual thing, I actually somewhat agree With Ben Shapiro on this, and that is because I do think that Retirement is and it has been said before by people who talk about this thing in better than me Is, is it's different. So, yeah, I think that, if I'm just gonna say this, Is that?
Speaker 3:a. If you're gonna retire, from a perspective I would say you have to you. You need to make it to where it's effective, to make it to where it's a for the lack of a better term radical don't waste your retirement and Don't don't sit idle, because your time is going to pass by very fast. And and I'm gonna play a little clip, yeah, from John Piper, from the Desire and God Ministries, about just because Ben Shapiro brought up that thing about retirement, about that. Listen to John Piper as a response to the retirement thing.
Speaker 2:If you're 52 and you've made a bundle, that's just fine. If you want to quit your job, it's just fine. Call it retirement if you want I don't like the word, but you can't, I get it. So you quit your job at 52, like Mrs Punta Gorda did, and I'm just pleading that you don't go collect shelves, that you give yourself to something way crazy, crazy for a 52-year-old or a 62-year-old or a 72-year-old. That's what I'm pleading. I don't care when you quit your job and call it retirement, that's irrelevant. What matters is what you do with it.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm speaking to a group last night about this and I quoted this wonderful passage from Proverbs the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the full day. The Christian life is not moving toward night, it's moving toward noon. There are no sunset years, there's only 11 to noon, which means that you don't have to scramble to bring heaven into this world, which is the entire mindset of the world that's spending billions of dollars to get you to buy the dream or prepare to buy the dream. They don't believe there's any vacation on the other side of the grave, so you bring it all into this side. You got to. It's your last chance. It's your last chance to get the dream and you look at me and say, excuse me, last chance. Noon is the beginning of vacation. It's Friday.
Speaker 3:So very good topics today, very weighty, I think we done done good with Ben, done good with Sagar, done good with Ryan Grimm. And I'm going to get into something that I have ignored for the past few days because I did those episodes, two spiritual episodes, one on response to Josh's episode of who did Jesus die for, and the other episode I did trying to distir, summary of Calvinism versus Arminianism, and I said that it was women's history month and because of that I wanted to honor them by getting to introducing us to 25 significant women of the Bible, and so this one is going to be the, the matriarchs of two great faiths Sarah and Hagar. So God's promise to Abraham is complicated. So, though Abraham is to be the patriarch of his people, he had no children. His wife, sarah's beard is is so well established, is that Genesis relates. She laughs when three strangers visit their campsite in a Hebrew and one of the guests says that she will have a son, god, who had, in disguise, been one of the strangers as Abraham. Why his wife laughs, given the divine power is limitless. When Sarah hears this, she becomes frightened and denies laughing, but the omniscient visitor tells her oh yes, you did laugh. Well, sarah, whose name means princess, is beautiful and desired by both the Egyptian Pharaoh and the Philistine King. She is in her 70s by that point.
Speaker 3:The inability to bear children is a common theme in the Bible offered providing the primary obstacle in a woman's story. When God intercedes and becomes and the woman becomes pregnant, her story propels the narrative and also gives her a way to influence the clan's future. So since Sarah could not assure Abraham's bloodline, she gives her spouse Hagar, an Egyptian slave girl, as a wife. Offering service to husband was a common practice in those times. Now, in ancient Mesopotamia, some marriage contracts even contained a clause that allowed a husband to father a child with a slave if the wife did not conceive.
Speaker 3:For Hagar, sarah's decree improves her position within the household, but her ease in the new position unnerves Sarah. When Hagar becomes pregnant, she looks down on her mistress. Sarah accuses her husband of supporting that, certain from happiness, and Abraham tells her your slave girl is in your power due to her, as you please. Sarah then sadly deals harshly with Hagar, who runs away. As Hagar's, whose name possibly means Wanderer, makes her way through the desert, she stops at a spring. There's an angel that tells her to return to the encampment and promises her to her son shall be wow as of a man, while it shall be wow as of a man with his hands against everyone, everyone's hands against him, and he will live at odds with his kin and Hagar's response. She becomes the first person to name God, saying you are irreverently, which could either mean God of seeing or God who sees. She dutifully returns to the encampment. So you know, she does as she's told and and then she gives birth to Ishmael. Now, but God's promises to Sarah is yet to be fulfilled, and that she'll give rise to nations and kings and the people shall come from her. So when Sarah is actually in her 90s, she gives birth to a son and she and Abraham named him Isaac. And and laughter.
Speaker 3:After Sarah weans Isaac, abraham throws a feast for him. During the party, sarah watches as Isaac plays with his teenage half brother. She's afraid that Iris, that Isaac's position. The house holds the in the incense that Abraham banishes Hagar and Ishmael. One morning, abraham hands Hagar some bread and water and sends them away to wander the wilderness. Soon they run out of water and Hagar puts Ishmael under a shrub and weeps, knowing that he's about to die.
Speaker 3:God hears Hagar weeping and the angel speaks to her from heaven and promises her that, if from Ishmael, god will make him a great nation. Hagar then spies a well of water that they and they were saved as prophesies this may all grow strong. Hagar finds him an Egyptian wife, and he has 12 sons of all who become princes, and Muhammad, the founder of Islam. This actually, when you look at this, descends from the lineage of that line. So we hear nothing again of Sarah until she dies at the age of 127 in. Abraham buries her in a cave at a Machk Peliah. So and that is some of the holy, holy site now, but I may get into some of that a bit later when I tell the story as a matter of fact, let me just do it now.
Speaker 3:So when Sarah dies at age 127 at a Crete Arab, which is the modern-day Abraham, approaches his Hittite neighbor, abraham, and buys for 400 silver shekels the cave at a Machk Peliah and their he bears Sarah. The tomb, thought to be the oldest Jewish religious site, still is actually accessible today is a final resting place not only for her, but also for Abraham, isaac, jacob, rebecca and Leah. Tradition also holds an. Adam, eve, esau and Jacob are interned there. During King Herod's reign, which was between 37 and 4 BCE, the monarch built a building over the cave. It is only fully surviving structure from that period and as the same measurement as the sacred enclosure in Herod's temple in Jerusalem. Over the centuries, the site has served as the Byzantine church and mosque, but when Israel won the Six-Day War in 1967, the building actually came under Israeli control.
Speaker 3:General Mosi Deuane, who led the Israeli forces to victory, was an amateur archaeologist who then undertook the first modern examination of the tomb's subterranean chamber. By lowering a 12-year-old girl down with a camera, she made a map of part of the space and told of the steps leading down to the small chain, so that I'd encourage you to read the Old Testament if you want to learn more. But that is a brief story about Sarah and Hagar, who were the for lack of a better term in this generation the wives of Abraham. So in the next show we're going to talk about, we're going to dive right into this TikTok controversy who's right, who's wrong? This is a big deal and I'm going to explain why, but I'm the show. I don't want the shows to run too long, so we're going to end it here and I will see you on the next episode.