Do you believe that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?

1. 60

   spbarton21posted 11 years ago

   Do you believe that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?
   
   Social Security was founded in order to give Americans assurances that they would have money when they retired. The idea was good on paper as a growing population would always ensure that the number of people paying into the system would be more than those taking from the system. It would have worked if the government did not start taking from the fund and the number of those paying into the system has halved in the last twenty years. So what is your take on Social Security? is it a ponzi scheme or isn't it?

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2. 59

   Davesworldposted 11 years ago

   As designed the Social Security system was never anything but a pay as you go scheme requiring the tax dollars of an ever expanding workforce to finance the benefits as time goes on.  IT may not be a Ponzi scheme, but if not, it's a close cousin.

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3. 68

   ledefensetechposted 11 years ago

   Of course it is.  A Ponzi scheme works like this.  Current investors are used to pay off previous investors.  That's how to tell if you're invested in a Ponzi scheme or not.  Social Security works exactly that way.  Current investors (workers) pay taxes that are then given to current users of Social Security (the retired).  The problem with Ponzi schemes is that sooner or later you run out of current investors to pay off previous ones ant the system collapses.  Even the SSA notes that this is an issue:
   
   https://www.socialsecurity.gov/policy/d … n4p37.html
   
   There was a way to keep this from happening when the system was first created but FDR and the Democrats of his era crushed that thinking.  They just wanted more revenue so they could buy votes.  Hence all the money collected was put into General Revenue with Congress writing IOU's for the money they took.  The problem is that demographics changed on them.  Declining birth rates shrunk the pool of potential workers so not only is the revenue shrinking, payouts from the fund are increasing do to Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) for current users of the system.  Expect this to become a political football as current users demand more money because their standard of living is falling due to increasing inflation, a byproduct of the unnatural things being done to the economy, in part to pay for the SSA, in the first place.This was all known by the statesmen who passed the law, it was widely discussed in editorials and letters to the editor at the time, but was ignored by those parasites as they'd be safely out of office and dead before it came time to pay the piper.  We're running out of time to dismantle this system in a humane way before it collapses and people start starving in the streets.

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