Social Security--a Ponzi Scheme?

Tell Hiipakka that people who replaced me when I retired are now making as much as $45,000 a year. I started at $3,200 and had to negotiate, fight, and strike to get up to $20,000 a year.

Hiipakka might also like to know that the house in which I live cost $5,570 in the 1930s. The house to the left of mine was bought for $320,000 a few years ago, and the house on the other side was sold for $325,000 recently. So the intrinsic value of my home has gone up 5,000%--I can’t eat that or wear it; I can’t even pay my bus fare with it.

I suffered and gained from inflation--but I didn’t cause it. I had my own anxieties about the future. Anxiety about living a decent respectable old age goes with the territory of life.

MARGARET W. ROMANI

Los Angeles