>As long as I get every dime I paid in back in full with interest in one large sum, fine....
>
>I didn't see any smiley, but my first thought was "You ARE joking, aren't you?"
>
>The reality is that the system is unsustainable and that it is going broke. 100% of nothing is still nothing.
>
>I paid tens of thousands of dollars into the system and I fear that, even though I am almost 60 years old, I will not receive any of the benefits that I paid for. If the system is broke, it's broke. It has no money left to pay me and there is nothing I can do about it.

The difference here is that it was a mandatory retirement plan -- you did not have any choice but to pay into it. So now that it is failed you are willing to give away all that hard earned money that you could have invested in a retirement plan yourself and either won or loss based on your own choice? Most of us have additional retirement plans we paid into by choice because we knew it was a piddly fund, but It was guaranteed and so it was mandatory. I am not willing to give it up without a fight. There are a lot of things I think need to change -- including healthcare, but this is not one of them. If you wipe it out, give me my money back. It was not a voluntary system.