How is a slow, incrementally increased retirement age tantamount to the privatization of Social Security? Given our recent raids of the fund, the unsustainability of increasing costs over the long term and the increased life-expectancies of people, an incremental upward adjustment of the retirement age seems reasonable to me. Obama would, in my view, by wise to strike a grand bargain--he would have been wiser to embrace Simpson-Bowles, but wisdom obviously hasn't come yet. In any event, Obama isn't Paul Ryan...just ask Republicans. 
Well I figure that the present value of my SS benefit if I cashed it out today at a 3% discount rate (for 8 years when I start cashing in per year) is about $275,000, much of it untaxed upon receipt. I just calculated it for kicks. That assumes my life expectancy is to age 84, which was a guess, but probably pretty close. So, you see, with a lot of Tories floating around out there, where this is going?
