dx1

Well, their interpretation is at odds with reality, and they should reconcile that. Regardless of what they told or what they believed, they paid into a system where they were forced to subsidize current recipients, while the system itself could be revoked at any point, leaving them high and dry, and not running into 14th Amendment issues or anything like that. See Flemming v. Nestor, 1960 - quoting Wiki:

Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603 (1960), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of Section 1104 of the 1935 Social Security Act. In this Section, Congress reserved to itself the power to amend and revise the schedule of benefits. The Court rejected that Social Security is a system of 'accrued property rights' and held that those who pay into the system have no contractual right to receive what they have paid into it.[1]

Note that I'm not saying anything "should" be one way or another, besides that people should be fully aware how the current system works in law.

Social Security's "trust fund" is an empty pit of debt obligations. Benefits to current recipients are paid with incoming payroll taxes. Any difference is made up with additional taxes or monetary inflation, by way of Treasury bonds. They "reinvest it in the economy" if there's ever a surplus, e.g., through military contractors. It finances the national debt.

Putting aside the quirks of that setup, the basic function is that the taxes you pay in now are not an investment in your own future, you're basically just paying for the retirement of older people now. The expectation is that someone down the road will then pay taxes to finance your retirement. Hence, how SS was able to start paying benefits almost immediately (3 years) after payroll taxes started being collected.

What is your prediction for what will become of it, though. GDP growth stops and people start bursting into flames? You know we've actually observed this before, right?

Now, if you do mean "capitalism" not in the plain definition of "an economy based around private ownership", but the more specific version where control of capital is highly centralized - there's some truth to the idea that economic decline can cause people to start looking to reform that system. True of any system, really, because people generally don't want to see their quality of life decrease. But that's very different than an economic system "requiring" it to function.

Capitalism does not "collapse" with 0 or negative GDP growth. I don't know where people got this idea. You only really see any sort of "collapse" if the social structure breaks down - the basic behaviors of trading continue even in extreme crises, insofar as a society operates with property assigned to individuals like that. Not counting "bubbles" and such as a "collapse".

Unfortunately our own pensions and such are also getting wiped out by the same forces. And with less access to insider information.

Anyone else see Reddit's stock tank 20% yesterday?

It's not laymen, it's a journalist. Their job is to accurately describe the truth.

Increase the number of participants in an economy, increases both supply and demand for labor, long story short. "Immigrants taking our jobs" is the stupidest talking point in human history.

It is factually incorrect. It is not giving them money, it is taking less money from them. That has different consequences under tax law and describing it that way also completely muddles people's understanding of how the budget works.

I hate the language around the federal budget. First, how budget figures are reporting in 10 year intervals, when everything else is reported in 1 year intervals. So everything sounds 10 times bigger. When like only 5% of the population ever looks at the federal budget, this creates a TON of confusion.

Second, how reductions in tax (like to the rich) are reported as "giveaways". Taxes go in, not out. That's a reduction in revenue, not an expenditure or liability. You can say, "shift the tax burden even more onto the lower and middle classes". Then it's actually accurate. Getting fired from your job is not an expense, it's a loss of income. Same thing.

I only see one country bragging about influencing U.S. election outcomes, and it's not Russia. You guys constructed Pepe Silvia-level theories about Russian influence and ignored the domestic corporatocracy and entire U.S. empire in favor of the media's chosen explanation of "Russian influence". As the saying more or less goes, nobody is immune to propaganda, including you. Modern propaganda narratives include accusations of propaganda leveled at the propaganda narrative's scapegoats.

Right, so up until the point the USDA PLC programs get exhausted (afaict ~$25B/yr), they compensate for the difference between the price floor (not sure if we're above or below that now) and market price. But that's a subsidy to the farmers, not an effect on the market price - the expense comes to taxpayers. And sometimes, they scoop up surplus through CCC, then remarket it elsewhere, an indirect/artificial market mechanism, which can include exports.