Confronting Old Age

 
Stella awakened me this morning (she frequently does that, as she has a job that requires her to be, as a friend of mine used to say, up at Dawn's Crack) with a reminder that in less than a week I will be about three months from my 62^nd birthday... and thus eligible to begin applying for Social Security if I wish. I intend to do just that. Yes, the payoff is smaller the earlier you start, but two factors weigh in favor of my retiring early:

• members of my family tend not to live to a ripe old age, and
• Social Security itself looks to be in danger of not living to a ripe old age.

 Obama apparently intends to cooperate with Pete Peterson and other Wall Street types to... oh, fuck, why am I even bothering to discuss it? Obama is at best a conservative Republican, and I don't want to think too hard about what he is at worst. I am fucked. You are fucked. We are all fucked. Some of us are incapable of just getting over it, but we have no choice but to get used to it. The repeal of the New Deal is already underway. "Buh-bye, old folks... have a nice... um, have a not too painful... um, please go somewhere else to die."