Look BadMutha, you are just nothing but a silly goose. Really, you can't see the difference. The diff. is: in the ponzi scheme, I give you my life savings(10,000) , and you promise to give me interst plus my 10,000 back at an agreed time(you still with me?) With S.S. i agree to give you $15 a week until I get to be 65, then you agree to give me 250 a month til I croak. Now in the Ponzi scheme the joker skips town with my money. The gov't has kept their end of the bargin so far, and if they would keep their hands off the cash it is solvent for the next 25 years thank you unless the Republicans shut down our Gov't like they almost did over the debt ceiling limit which had nothing to do with Social SECURITY. The part that seems to cornfuse you jokers is , In the ponzi scheme he pays the interest out of the principal or out of the new investors. S.S. pay benifits to retires out of current workers because when it started they did not get any money up front(the 10,000 that ponzi got) SO.... the only money to pay bebifits from had to come from the current workers. You couldn't start by taking mony from the retirees to pay the retirees. This is a program that has worked fine for 75 years, yes the baby boomers have created a little bump in the road but given time will work itself out if we can get peop[le working here again. AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT The only thing illegal about Ponzi is he bit off more than he could handle. He promised more interest than he could pay. If it weren't for that it would be no different than the investment firm down the block.
From today........ In the 1950's it was 16 workers per retiree.....1.75 workers per retiree today......got Ponzi Scheme? . . .
In it's current form? Not likely. I suppose at some level of taxation for our generation might be able to get the current one through if the economy holds together. That said it's not like it has to be eliminated. All someone has to do is balance the books in the sense of how much is being given vs how much was put in. And really, now that I think about it. If medicare gets reigned in, that might fix the social security problem without any further effort. Um. It's still not really a ponzi scheme it just has some similarities. Actually in a good Ponzi scheme you keep up a high ratio of incoming investors to higher level ones right up until you grab the money and go if you can. This is just warm and fuzzy priciples under a heaping pile of crappy planning.
Is SS a ponzi scheme ? Speaking as an older fart that turned 55 a few weeks ago and having worked & paid taxes all my life , , , let me be the first on PF to say this , , , and mark it down and pay heed and consideration . I suppose that even a great idea such as Social Security can be warped to criminal misuse by crooked politicians ... that would seem to be the case here. I and many millions of others depend on Social Security for our daily bread ... If anyone , and by that I mean Perry and the GOP Party of NO ,,, thinks they can throw SS under the bus had better get a stout grip on political reality . The single largest block of voters in the US are the voters on a fixed income , and they / we all vote to protect our own intrests , , , in this case , the solvency of Social Security ... I don't give a tinkers dam for the Republicants , or Perry , even less so Romney .
We know. Although I think there are at least some in your generation that care if America lasts longer than you do. Or about much of anything else. So maybe there will be enough votes to do something. That said, I do have to admit that it's a hard situation in that both parties are sort of behind SS. It's a social program with a massive budget and so the Democrats like the concept, and the Republicans usually rely on the AARP voting crowd. Though again I'm not entirely opposed to some of the ideas in social security, I'm just saying that what is paid out to an age bracket should be roughly equal to what they put in, not vastly more. There are a host of ways to achieve that. It seems our politicians may have elected to go with no or low cost of living increases while printing money until the dollar starts inflating rapidly. Which I suppose could work.
There's no question that the mechanics of it works just like a ponzi scheme. And just Madoff.....the Congress actually voted to allow spending the money on other things....thus the program for the younger folks will NOT be there for them. It is the young....citizens 50 and younger who should be most outraged because it's a system they are still FORCED to be a part of, and which will not be there for them. Pres. Bush tried to get them to agree to change SS for the younger workers and to allow them to own their SS accounts and invest a small percentage of it into their choice among some rather conservative investments. The Democrats would not go for it. It looks like we're going to have to get a Republican president AND a Republican Congress and Senate in order to get this finally fixed; once and for all.
The way it is now.....if you die just before time for you to start collecting, the federal gov't just keeps your money. Yes....that's right: they keep it. Your heirs do not get any of it......unless you have children under age 19 or a spouse and they would get part of it. My sister died at age 48 and her sons who were then 19 and 24 got none of her SS....AND, the federal gov't just kept it. Every single dime she paid into it for 28 years, they kept. THAT needs to be changed.
If you have health insurance and die before you ever go to the hospital, you don't collect. If you have auto insurance and die without a car wreck, you don't collect. If you have insurance against living in poverty beyond your working years and die in your working years, you don't collect. Stop pretending that social insurance is an investment. Like all insurance, it's a risk pool.
Century Legislation : Like the democrats did with health care they knew it was unpopular but ran it through anyway. It was the corner stone of their progressive agenda. Nationalized health care. When all the cards fell like they did enacting the legislation was more important than their short term political security. Thats how they sold it to the majority of democrats in congress, " Historical perspective". Your right JP4+1. When we get the majority lets vote our, " Historical Perspective". Privatize Social Security- The Republicans Century Legislation- Strike a blow to another of the progressives corner stones.
Your generation was quite the mixed bag as far as all that goes. Sounds like you've got some patriotism going on though. So what do you think about this mess then? Unless some super swine flu goes around and gets the eldarly or some other drastic occurance changes things, than we could fire the entire armed forces and we still won't be able to fund these programs. Just keep raising taxes on my generation until we have to move in with you? Hope you like company
Except if Social Security was auto insurance.......EVERYONE would get into an accident at a predetermined date. If it was health insurance......EVERYONE would get ill at a date and time specified by the government. If it was Fire Insurance.......EVERYONE'S house would be burnt down when it was 62 years old. If it was Flood Insurance.....EVERYONE would live in a flood plain. Except unlike all insurance....EVERYONE collects from the ponzi scheme known as Social Security. There is no pool because everyone that put in, is also taking out.....with the exception of the people that dont live past 60.....which is what Democrats are counting on. . . . .
False. One person siding with you already explained why. Some people die before 62 (65 if they want better benefits). And some die before 70, so they collect... but not as much as they paid. This brings up one of the problems I have with Social Security. One people like you don't care about at all. The obvious answer if life expectancy goes up: Raise the retirement age! The problem: It's not even. Disparity in life expectancy also goes up. Poor people don't have such an increase in life expectancy. Also blue collar jobs... a person is not going to be in the shape to work them for long, unlike a white collar worker, where productivity length increases with life length. The result is that increasing the retirement age will lead to a lot of suffering. BUT it would be the obvious way to keep the system solvent. And since when are insurance policies FAIR?! Now let's get to my point of view: I actually have a lot of trouble with how SS is run. 1. It's funded by an uber-regressive payroll tax. 2. It's propped up by the fact that it pays benefits to middle class people capable of saving for themselves (and who, other than that, often would just assume the poor be left to die). 3. People these days don't even seem to understand what it's for and make BS arguments against it based on comparing it to something it's not! Now ideally... I'd actually prefer an age-disability-based GMI paid for out of general funds (elimintae the payroll tax, raise the income tax rate some). Straightforward honest welfare for the old and disabled. Not an insurance plan. Not an investment plan. A means-tested back-up for the unfortunate. I'd like to see how conservatives (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)ing about SS feel about that. What conservatives seem to be for is a forced investment program. Okay, some libertarians want it to be voluntary. If your investments don't pan out-- you're screwed! If you don't have enough to invest enough for retirement, as with the 401K, you're screwed! But rich people will get a better return. And it will be a nice way for politicians to steer investment money into the coffers of their favorite corporate buddies! Defined contribution rather than defined benefit... the final straw to make ALL saving for retirement in the US defined contribution. Which would be an utter disaster for at least some people... but, hell, the rich will be better off so who cares? And what problem does this solve? None. None at all. It doesn't even address the problem social security addresses! So if you're going to (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) about SS, at least provide some idea of a program that will solve the problem. Otherwise just admit you don't care about the problem... which makes the whole worrying about "ponzi scheme" structure a bit silly.
so--you are saying that if I do not pay my insurance, then I will not get an armed sheriff coming to my door with a summons to go to court?
One Idiot politician calls social security a ponzi scheme and 5 million American nuts jump on the conspiracy bandwagon--ROFLOLLOLOLO
maybe we just need to start a few more wars, but send older people, near the age of retirement to fight them. Then when they die, they will leave their SS money to the ones that are left. This will go a long way towards filling in the so-called "money hole".
And if it were life insurance, oh, yeah, like SS, life insurance always pays out. Hmm, but what happens to the SS money if someone dies before retirement age? Does the govt put their money in the casket?
You either buy into the ponzi scheme....or men with guns are dispatched to your door. What Democrats would call a public option..... . . .
Is a 'pay as ya go' system... No, social security is not a ponzi scheme September 13, 2011 - "America is Greece!" and "Social security is a ponzi scheme!" are catchy sayings, but wild exaggeration about the U.S. economy doesn't solve anything.
I know it's stange but the starring liberal/Enron flack Paul Krugman said Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/paul-krugman-social-security-ponzi-scheme-and-will-soon-be-over "Social Security is structured from the point of view of the recipients as if it were an ordinary retirement plan: what you get out depends on what you put in. So it does not look like a redistributionist scheme. In practice it has turned out to be strongly redistributionist, but only because of its Ponzi game aspect, in which each generation takes more out than it put in. Well, the Ponzi game will soon be over, thanks to changing demographics, so that the typical recipient henceforth will get only about as much as he or she put in (and today's young may well get less than they put in)." The original sources is: http://www.bostonreview.net/BR21.6/krugmann.html Of course, we all know Paul Krugman has no problem talking out of both sides of his mouth as his audience demands. In other words, he's a liberal.
you either by insurance for your car or armed men will come to your door, I guess that is a ponzi scheme also
Stop paying for auto insurance...I will gurantee no armed men will be dispatched. Stop paying into the Ponzi Scheme of Social Security.....I will gurantee armed men will be dispatched to your front door.....to ensure you buy into the Ponzi Scheme. The same holds true for every and any Democrat Public "Option". . . . .
