Hilarious editorial. It’s like it was written by a kid for his high school government class.
So a Ponzi scheme is an investment thing that doesn’t really turn much of any profit, but benefits are paid to existing investors from money gotten from new investors. It always collapses because it requires infinite investors to work. Because of this it’s illegal and usually masked as something. It’s fake. Get it?
So here is the USA Today’s editor’s explanation of why US Social Security isn’t a Ponzi scheme:
Ponzi schemes have two salient features. First, they are criminal enterprises, which Social Security is not. Second, they work only until people get wind of what is going on, at which point they inevitably collapse. Social Security’s finances are plainly visible for all to see.
“Nevermind how it functions, it’s not a Ponzi scheme because it’s the government.”
Don’t get me wrong I think Rick Perry’s an ass and I’ll move to Canada before I see another redneck Texan in the white house, but this article’s argument is childish at best.
You’d really move to Canada if Perry was elected? I hope he wins. Lol
Also I totally agree with Perry on this one. SS is a joke! If I bad that same money in my 401k I’d be able to retire way before 90 y/o or whatever te new gov age requirement is. I sure as hell don’t plan on working much past 55 lol. Unless I get bored at home building fast cars.
I agree with him tho. There is less money going into the system than going out and everyone knows it, just no politician wants to address it and lose voters who are planning on getting social security. I just wish everyone got their money back and they got rid of the damn system.
The only reason SS hasn’t collapsed is because it’s required that we pay into it.
I would definitley jump at the chance to get back the money I paid into SS, even without interest, and privately invest it.
I would love to have an option to pull out everything I put into it and not be able to claim SS when I get older. Hell, I would be better off taking this money and going to the casino once a year and trying to double it on a shitty game like roulette than plan on seeing it in the SS system 35 years from now. I also love the pamphlet you get each year showing what you have contributed to it. I feel its a rub in the face along the lines of “Hey look what you put money into it and will never see again.”
They should have a 5 page form you have to fill out in order to be exempt from SS. Put some difficult questions in it like the square root of 100 and what 3 cubed plus 1 equals. That way smart people can use their money as they see best. I hate being told what to use my own money for, especially when its being used in a shitty investment scam.
Social Security is solvent. It is taking in just as much as it is paying out. We will be able to collect it, even though it might mean every other gov. program out there goes on the chopping block, because politicans just care too damn much about the old vote and old people will never endorse a change to it, even for future generations because they’re paranoid. You really think the government is just going to steal your money that is clearly going into a seperate SS trust fund and give you nothing in return? Any politician that proposes that just signed their own death warrant. I get that this is the government-hating generation, but private industry fucks society over like that infinitely more.
I don’t get how people can say social security is a ponzi scheme and they want no part of it, yet they presumably want to invest it themselves in the stock market. Exactly the same principles. The only reason it always goes up in the long term is because you’re relying on infinite demand to keep driving up prices. Everyone pulls their money out, the system crashes.
I really hope Perry wins the GOP nod. Not that I trust the American public one bit, but his views are somewhere just to the right of Mussolini.
In calendar year 2010, for the first time since the enactment of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, annual outlays for the program exceeded annual revenues excluding interest credited to the trust funds. CBO projects that the gap will continue: Over the next five years, outlays will be about 5 percent greater than such revenues.
However, as more members of the baby-boom generation (that is, people born between 1946 and 1964) enter retirement, outlays will increase relative to the size of the economy, whereas tax revenues will remain at an almost constant share of the economy. As a result, the shortfall will begin to grow around 2017.
It ran at a deficit for one year. Every year since 1983 otherwise it has run a surplus and contributed to the general fund. Plus this doesnt factor in interest income on trillions of dollars, they dont just have the trust fund sitting in a big mattress.
Social Security expenditures exceeded the program’s non-interest income in 2010 for the first time since 1983. The $49 billion deficit last year (excluding interest income) and $46 billion projected deficit in 2011 are in large part due to the weakened economy and to downward income adjustments that correct for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years. This deficit is expected to shrink to about $20 billion for years 2012-2014 as the economy strengthens. After 2014, cash deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers.
So you trust the government to manage your money more than you trust yourself? Maybe for the masses… How about an ‘opt out’ option? But then the ponzi scheme would fail.