While filling the propane tank this past Saturday, I saw the weekend paper’s headline, telling the news that we all knew was coming: 2010 will be the last year of spring training in Tucson.

I’m not sure it could have been “saved” in the first place.  Here’s why I think that:

1. Attendance wasn’t great.  I’ll admit I’m no expert on spring training baseball (and I’m sure the true experts will soon rise up and correct my errors)…but I saw plenty of  empty seats at the games I attended.  If the local community really, really wanted to save spring training, shouldn’t we have turned out in greater numbers?  We all knew it was on life support, that the D-backs and Rockies were looking for a reason to leave.  Well, those empty seats gave them a pretty good reason.  IIRC, the White Sox are drawing really good numbers (with higher ticket prices) at their new stadium.
2. Apparently, the price for keeping MLB in Tucson was a brand-new stadium.  OK—maybe Tucson Electric Park isn’t everything that MLB wants to see in a ballpark.  But, IMO, it’s a fine stadium.  No, it’s not Yankee Stadium—but Tucson isn’t NYC, either.  Maybe it should have been built elsewhere in the city, but it’s there now.  I blanched at the thought of having to abandon a perfectly good stadium in order to build another one closer to Phoenix, and I’m not surprised that many Tucsonans blanched, too.
3. I got the sense that the MLB players weren’t too thrilled about being in Tucson to begin with.  They didn’t like traveling, and Phoenix is a more “hopping” place for young, rich ballplayers to spend their months of March.  There’s not much that Tucson can do to remedy that. 
4. Any thought that Major League Baseball might insist on preserving the spring training tradition in Tucson evaporated when I heard what happened to Vero Beach.  The Florida town was the home of “Dodgertown,” the spring training complex the Dodgers used since 1949, when they played in Brooklyn.  A half-century of tradition went bye-bye when the Dodgers moved to Glendale.  If Dodgertown can close, then no spring training venue is safe.

Okay—the floor is open.  What are your thoughts on spring training? Could Tucson have saved it?  If so, how?

Assuming we post-Baby-Boomers* get some Social Security when we retire, what are your plans for that income stream?

Off the top of my head, I can think of three basic things you could do with your SS money:

1. It could be your primary retirement income.
2. You could use it to pay the premiums for your health-care insurance, long-term care insurance, etc…
3. It could be your “mad money,” the money you use to pay for vacations, eating out, etc…

For my family, we’re going with Option 2.  We’re hoping to use SS to pay the premiums for our long-term care insurance, a medical plan to supplement our Medicare/TRICARE For Life, etc…  We’ve pretty much determined that our day-t0-day expenses in our golden years will be covered by savings and part-time work. 

What are your plans for your Social Security?

The Social Security trust fund is now projected to be depleted in 2037. Back in February, the fund was supposed to last until 2041. Six months from now…who knows?

Ever since the 1990s, it’s been common knowledge that Social Security’s financial security was shaky. Someone who’s 50 now, with retirement on the far horizon, would have been in their late 20s/early 30s in the 1990s—old enough to know that SS’s future was on thin ice.

For those of us 50 or younger, we shouldn’t expect Social Security to be as robust for us as it was for our parents and grandparents. Apparently, some of us have gotten the word.

The journalist who wrote the Economist article linked above ran his own, unscientific poll on Twitter, asking this question to those under 40: “Are you counting on Social Security to be there when you’re older?” Here are some of the responses he got:

“I don’t expect Social Security to exist by the time I’m old enough to retire. I don’t expect to retire either.”

“NO.” (I tend to look at Social Security taxes as an mandatory enforced charitable donation to my well-meaning but wayward government.)

“Yes, but in a much different form. like in ‘Logan’s Run.’” (Note: “Logan’s Run” was a movie set in the future, where people over 30 were euthanized.)

So, here’s my basic question for this week. What should people aged 50 or younger expect to get out of Social Security?

Speaking for myself, I’ve told our financial planner to factor in 50% of our estimated SS benefit when he’s doing our retirement planning. I doubt SS will disappear entirely, but I do expect benefits to drop significantly by the time I retire.

What are your thoughts? What do you think Social Security will–or won’t—do for you?