I’m curious as to what the provenance is of this chart showing the number of people and age ranges receiving Social Security.
My wife died two years ago and SS knew about it the same day and discontinued payments immediately. I’ve also been informed that SSA will draw back payments made for the time that follows the death, and that info came from the bank. It didn’t apply, in our case.
So, I wonder how deaths go unreported to SSA, and how there would be no mechanism to explore payments to at least the two folks over 240 years old.
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Lesson 2 in actual science.
(Brought to you by the guy who ruined your 19th century understanding of the oxygen cycle).
Every animal population has a limiting factor, and limiting factors are not static. Something will always limit growth. Disease, food presence, predation, natural events, etc.
Presently for humans it appears to be social behavior. The ‘Lemmings off a cliff’ thing was never real but Disney did that. Social factors in apes will affect reproduction.
So, about 5 years ago population growth stopped being a pressing concern to people who don’t need to count on their fingers to understand math. Granted that could change, but with the exception of India/Pakistan, the Middle East and parts of subsaharan Africa, human population has already peaked, but even in those places the rate of population growth has already started to decline.
Here’s an idiot’s guide to the concepts, collated, as is the UN’s habit, as a worst-case scenario.
Note that the places sustaining population growth have easy-to-predict limiting factors (food availability) and consistent destabilizing social influences making the population growth rate zero point estimate decline over time.
IOW the date of zero population growth is approaching faster than thought and world events are to blame. War, politics, intentional witholding of technological advances in ag, etc.
For my part I blame the plurality of scientifically illiterate educators promulgating the same doom-mongering used to create nich markets for accretion of resources, political capital and control. Scared people don’t question authority, but they do contribute financially to causes that address their fears.
There is some truth to there being racist influence in these issues. Allowing people with the wrong color skin to pursue their personal best interest, whether it’s turning rainforest to arable land or embracing the genetic imperitive, tends to be outgroup members dictating policy to ingroup members by asserting false claims of stakeholdership. This is realpolitik, not science.
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I’m so sorry for your lose. Even though it’s been 2 years I know it has to be hard to think about or discuss. My wife has been my only true partner in anything that I have 100% trust in. Condolences.
One of the answers to the question you ask is too disturbing to discuss imo. I read about it quite frequently, & its just the ones who get caught. A few broken people but I suspect there’s other ways as well.
Thank you for your kindness and empathy. It’s a truly horrible turn of events in our later life together. She was my best friend and the best shipmate I’ve been to sea with.
No doubt there is an endless amount of creative larceny even beyond the ever popular chest freezer, but the larger question is do we believe that the SSA has no procedure to verify the existence and eligibility of the 7+ million people that are older than 120 years of age? It should be as simple as requesting local law enforcement to conduct a welfare check every 5 years or so after age 100? They’re not bashful about requiring funeral homes to notify them upon a senior’s passing.
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With the smallest amount of research, one would learn that the chart was not the number of people receiving benefits, but the number of social security numbers in the system not listed as deceased. (Interestingly anecdote, many of the numbers may be being used by illegal aliens to hold a job, thus paying into and supporting a system even though they will never receive the benefits)
The number of those individuals over 100 receiving benefit checks was found to be 2% of the numbers in that chart. But of course adding explanation is not as scary and exciting.
As to the surprisingly suspicious number at/over 150 years of age, that too may have a relatively simple explanation based on the coding language used 60 years ago and the commonly used default date for when no birthdate was input.
As like most of the “news” lately, room for improvement and streamlining, yes, over sensationalized and exaggerated by Musk, also yes.
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Musk’s tweet specifically states that’s the data the chart represents.
So, yeah, I’d say reading the tweet that contains the chart qualifies as doing the smallest amount of research.
This was brought up in the ‘Solving Social Security Solvency’ thread. That coding issue would explain a shit ton of 149 year olds but there are millions in the other 110+ yo age brackets as well.
My pension fund sends me a form to fill out in my own handwriting every year. It was a private pension plan payed by a UK Union when I worked for Texaco Tankerships.
If a person is receiving US SSA retirement while living outside the USA they have to fill out a proof of life form once a year or benefits are cut off. SSA used to call to verify many but that has reduced over the years as staff levels haven’t kept up with the increasing number of retirees.
This proof of life in the US is generally not required as local and state officials are supposed to report deaths to SSA. Generally works well.
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Which begs the question: if we are concerned about dead people getting money from the SSA why are SSA staff being cut?
Verifying proof of life by a hand written letter and phone calls takes human interaction. And yet Musk is firing the humans.
Crazy.
Unless your end-goal is to intentionally crash the entire system then claim the system doesn’t work and do away with it, replacing it with a system that will monetize a few oligarchs.
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Actually the reporting system in the USA works well most of the time. States report and most funeral homes report on a form SSA-721 as does the VA. The SSA Death index used to be available on line until identity theft became a thriving industry.
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Dear Dr.Bugge
CanYou spell demagogue so I can hear it 
??
Above pic. lacks precision and I hear it on the grapevine that your Sir motto is : it is in the human nature to seek the truth .
Is it not??
Below part of Prof. Glenn Disen (Norvegian) interview with a great humanist and authority.
I don’t know Prof. Glenn Disen, but he appears to get around. Here in Ukraine:
https://x.com/Glenn_Diesen/status/1892470680169414758?mx=2
Maybe the C-14 group is one of those receiving USAid donations?
Any chance we can get this thread back on track?
Ok .I shut up. Happy?
It is not up to me if you post or not, or even what you say.
That being said, the question in my OP was. “With the end of USAID, and the shifting of some functions to state, does anyone know what effects on U.S. Flag shipping”
One (ONE!) poster linked an article mentioning two bottoms being laid up.
Does anyone have any more information on that subject?
For better or worse, Trump is president (though apparently now he’s claiming to be king)
That’s done,
Going foward should not be is Trump goid, bad, or indifferent, the questions, here, on this forum should be, how will Trump’s presidency (or reign) effect us as Seafarers, our Unions, and our livelihoods.
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You’re kinda asking for the thread to get derailed when you say shit like this.
Those bottoms get laid up after every grain run. They try and find bulk contracts but if they can’t they just lay em up. Nothing out of the ordinary. Idk of any other ships making the grain run.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you President Wayne Gretzky
Source: https://wapo.st/3QwpeG0 (Gift article. No paywall)
PS> That last bit is about food, so not entirely OT