of course it is.

I can’t say this is particularly insightful, but Ezra Klein’s article on Social Security at least highlights the issues around affording retirement at a national level:

• People don’t save enough, and 401(k) (or equivalent) plans often don’t provide a lot of incentive for people to save.
• Employers don’t use the 401(k) enough as a competitive factor in recruiting and retaining employees, preferring to simply shed the costs formerly associated with pensions.
• Current parameters for Social Security make it untenable in the long run, even at the inadequate rates paid out to eligible people.

Of course, this has been a known problem for a long time with no real discussion about the black hole of politics that is entitlement reform.  The unknown is whether enough people in Congress will put governing over elections long enough to do something – make payroll taxes less regressive, reset the retirement age, close loopholes in business contributions, other ideas I don’t know about – about it..  I’d like to be cautiously optimistic, but there’s no reason I should be at present.