Not really. Your post shows no understanding at all of the reason a pyramid scheme is fraudulent; you just go right into portraying Social Security as being even more fraudulent - with less than no understanding at all. You can complain loudly that it’s unfair or bad policy, but it is not fraudulent. That is a 12-year-old’s rhetoric.
Those are best esteimates, the rosty esteimates take us out to 2080.
You don’t see a difference between 85% and 5%?
Greece is not teh USA.
Nope still don’t have fraud.
We hold it in IOUs from teh US government.
Its not worse, its different. Its not how you would like the world to work but noone can show an example of the world ever working the way you seem to want it to. Social insurance must be mandatory by definition, you can’t allow self selection and cherrypicking.
Oh, fer chrissakes :rolleyes: … a pyramid scheme, like the ones Ponzi was famous for and which still exist today, depend on an *exponentially-increasing *number of initial entrants into the system. That’s where the payoffs to the earlier entrants come from, the *exponentially-increasing *amount of money being put into it. That’s where the word “pyramid” comes into it. With me so far? Good. Now, at some point, you simply run out of people to become initial entrants. The need for an exponentially-increasing number of them is unsustainable - Earth has a finite population. It’s doomed to collapse by that inconvenient fact. That’s what makes it inherently fraudulent. Think all that over for a moment before we go on, so you’ll grasp the concept. That is the essence of a Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme. Not the existence of transfer payments, but its inherent and incurable unsustainability.
Social Security does NOT depend on an ever-increasing number of taxpayers, only a balance in the cash flow from the payers through the clearinghouse to the payees. That balance can be (and must be managed), but that is readily done with only a small amount of willpower. There is nothing inherently unsustainable about the system, and in fact it’s worked fine for the better part of a century already. The fundamental definition of a Ponzi scheme (which, once again, is not the existence of transfer payments but the unsustainable need for an exponentially increasing number of new entrants) in no way applies to Social Security.
Is that still unclear in any way? Do any of you still wish to continue juvenile mischaracterizations to the contrary?
What do you think they do with distressed pension funds?
These gimicky t-bills are just as much an obligation of the federal government as the treasuries you buy at auction. What makes them different is taht they can only be issued to the ss fund and the rate of return floats according to a formula unique to these bonds.
I can understand how you might get confused seeing as how insurance companies usually cannot invest all the insurance premiums they receive in their own corporate debt but that is the difference with the federal government, there is not safer investment than their own debt.
Thats kind of ad hominem. The Cato isntitute make all sorts of sense on some issues and sound absolutely retarded on others. On this particular issue (is social security a Ponzi scheme) they are being dishonest or stupid. In fact they don’t actually call it a Ponzi scheme, they only remark on the similarities that acuse other people to call it a Ponzi scheme.
Well the other choice is to let them sue their employers for negligence and stuff. It worked so well that 50 states and the SDistrict of Columbia decided to turn their backs on that method.
Well, I would say taht I’m happy to have corrected you but you seem to be saying that not only is SS a Ponzi scheme, it si a Ponzi scheme that youar e forced to participate in. Without FRAUD, Ponzi or anything like it should not be used as a descriptor. What you really want to say is that it is a transfer payment or welath redistribution but that is not vitriolic enough for you so you try to tie it to fraud by using the word Ponzi or something close to it. Why not simply admit taht your problem with SS is that it involves transfer payments (or wealth redistribution if you prefer). Of course then you ahve to deal with the notion that all government entails some welath redictstribution and usually requires transfer payments.
Would it make you feel better if someone jsut came out and said that it shold be an entitlement. I’ll say it. SS is an eneitltement but a hybrid entitlement where your entitlement is affected by your contribution but is still highly progressive.
My point was that the ss fund invests its funds just like insurance companies but it is not fully funded like insurance companies (never has been, never will be).
But I do see the difference between Ponzi schemes and social insurance through transfer payments, you do not seem to.
What they really want to do is associate proxies for really bad words to social security and medicare somehow but a proxy for the word fraud is the closest they could get.
I tried that with him before and it was ignored. Not expecting an answer this time either.
We do have examples to point to of what the world is like when you do not have these safety nets and it is not pretty.
Nevermind the realities. Getting rid of SS and such is just “right”. They can’t tell you how it will all just work out and be better. It is an article of faith (read “magic”)that it will.
Sorry, a lot of the country thinks the viewpoints by Cato and Heritage and other sources are very credible. Just because my post isn’t from HuffPo or Kos doesn’t make it any less relevant, despite the hive mind mentality of the left-leaning SDMB.
Is it exactly like Madoff’s Ponzi scheme? Of course not. But in the sense that there is no necessary link between what you paid in and what you paid out, and in the sense that structure of a Ponzi scheme, new investors pay off the original investors…as long as enough new ‘victims’ are brought into the scheme, it keeps growing and growing. But when the new investors runs out, the Ponzi collapses. Analogously, the slowdown in population growth puts pressure on Social Security finances.
That’s the only dimension I was referring to. And it’s bad enough all by itself to mean that we better do something, and pretty soon. Although a pay-as-you-go system can in fact work, that only makes sense when the population and demographics (or more accurately, relationship to those contributing and those drawing) remains stable. The coming baby boom generation hitting retirement age threatens this.
Edit to add: Does the HuffPo count as a good enough reference?
I must say, it’s frustrating. As one of the few moderates on this board, I see people post through the fog of their political agendas, facts notwithstanding.
Pension funds are protected through ERISA and PBGC. They are subject to a lot of regulation and are supposed to be funded sufficiently to handle claims.
Would you say that Social Security is being managed to those standards? Would you say that the US has taken the necessary steps to ensure the health of SS? Would you say they have the political will to make the changes soon enough that they don’t become draconian?
You couldn’t be more wrong. The Social Security trust fund is NOT invested as it would be by private insurance companies. It is invested in ‘special’ government bonds that pay 5.5% interest, and will need to be redeemed by… the government. This ‘investment’ is not stored or stashed or put to work in equities or money markets; it is ‘invested’ by being spent immediately (which serves to cloud the brutal deficit levels and make our wimp politicians even more willing to spend with borrowed money).
Since you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to wiki
Which would you say has happened?
It is absolutely wealth distribution. It is absolutely an entitlement.
That is not how it was sold by FDR at its inception, and that is not how it is being sold today. And I believe that lack of honesty contributes at least in part to the confusion and misunderstanding of what is actually going on with the program.
An earlier poster stated that there were $2 trillion of ‘reserves’ in the program. That is the language that real pension funds, annuities and retirement funds use to describe their condition.
But there is no such thing in SS. There are no reserves. That is a fraud. You and other posters have been splitting hairs about the definition of “Ponzi Scheme” for the last 3 pages…and one of your debate points is that SS can’t be a Ponzi scheme, because it isn’t fraudulent.
The hell it isn’t. There are no ‘reserves’. That’s pure, unadulterated fraud right there. With language sanctioned by the US government.
You asked above what I would do to transition off SS. I’ve offered one suggestion here, and in other threads. Here it is…
I’ve contributed somewhere in the ballpark of $200,000 in cumulative, nominal dollars over my employment lifetime to SS. The NPV of that is far greater. But let’s stick with nominal dollars for now.
The US government owes me something at retirement for that contribution. My little entitlement is a small piece of that $109 trillion liability that I referenced earlier.
Here’s my offer…don’t pay me anything when I retire. You don’t owe me anything. That 200 grand I contributed was a gift. Take whatever part of that $109 trillion liability that has my name on it, and write it off. You don’t owe that to me. You don’t have to pay me a cent.
Just don’t take any more of my money via FICA with-holding, from here on out. I’ll negotiate whatever I can from my employer from that 15% that is now available to them and me.
Deal?
I completely agree with your description of a Ponzi scheme. I completely agree with your definitions.
I completely disagree with your conclusion. SS most certainly depends on an ever-increasing number of taxpayers (perhaps more precisely, tax revenues). The balance will most certainly not be ‘readily managed’. It is not being ‘readily managed’ today, as evidenced by the exploding liabilities referenced above. The system is most certainly unsustainable.
And I roll my eyes at your silly ad hominem attacks. Someday, you will realize how foolish your debate points actually are. You keep defining my debate point for me and then call me names. I really don’t need to do any work, here.
Where the fuck did you get that idea from? Not from the world of reality.
Only in the sense that your car will certainly break down if you never change the oil. You’re asserting that Social Security is doomed, why? Simply because you want it to be? Or do you have some factual basis and plausible argument to support that claim?
Perhaps a discussion of the facts, and the nature of a pyramid scheme, is beside the point. You and **Smashy **seem intent on assuring yourselves of Social Security’s being doomed, after a century in operation, even to the point of insisting on calling our most successful advance in civilization of the last century by a name associated only with fraud. Why? Just what point are you trying to make with that choice of words? Have you even thought that out?
Try presenting actual reasoned arguments with actual facts behind them and they’ll get respect here. Handwaving and bluster don’t. Nobody else’s fault.
To the extent that they are as secure as the government itself, yes.
Not yet, and yes. Part of that political will has to involve ignoring the selfish and juvenile complaints of those who insist it can’t be done, it’s futile, it’s going to collapse, and btw we’ll all be better for that anyway. People such as …