[mosdef]

You are right on many key points, your post has two fairly large errors in it.

1. Benefit calculations do not take into account the amount of tax you paid.

This is not quite right. If you're talking about the basic pension at retirement, the benefit is a formula based on covered earnings and the contributions are also a formula based on current earnings. This means that the benefits are linked to contributions. I think what you mean to say is that the benefit is not intended or calculated to be be equivalent in value to the contributions you put it, i.e. it is not a defined contribution pension scheme. But everyone knows this, and it doesn't (by itself) invalidate the scheme. It makes it a defined benefit scheme with subsidies between members, which occur all over the place in the private market.

2. "Hey, canada has a trust fund. don't tell me we can't do it." response; Canada's trust fund is miniscule compared to ours, and they invest it in a foreign market (ours).

Well, if the money were not taken from taxpayers it would have to go somewhere else. Whether it is consumed or invested, that money would need to flow into the global market somehow, so I also don't buy this argument that "the market isn't big enough to handle it".