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Title: Rick Perry is Right: Social Security Really is a Ponzi Scheme
Source:
Dissenting Opinions
URL Source: http://jwpegler.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -is-right-social-security.html
Published: Sep 10, 2011
Author: Eric Blankenburg
Post Date: 2011-09-10 21:05:00 by jwpegler
Keywords: None
Views: 114609
Comments: 228
Rick Perry's comments during this week's GOP debate at the Reagan library has caused quite a stir in the liberal media. During the debate, Governor Perry defended the words in his book, calling Social Security a "Ponzi scheme". After the debate, the "analysis" on MSNBC was truly fun to watch as every commentator sat shelled shocked over the fact that a politician would dare to use these words to describe America's most sacred welfare program. The only person on the panel who had a clue about what might be going on was Ed Schultz who at one point questioned whether or not whether young people would stick with Obama or jump on the Perry bandwagon. Unlike the political and media establishment in this country, young people understand that they are going to get the short end of the Social Security "inter-generational compact". Schultz surprisingly realized that Perry's message might resonant with young people. Let's take a quick look at the Social Security system and see if Perry might be on to something. The people who got into the Social Security system very early got back on average 15 times the amount of money they paid in. They got a great deal and were raving proponents of the system. The people receiving Social Security benefits today are getting back on average 2 1/2 to 3 times what they paid in. They are also generally strong proponents of the system. Today, Social Security is paying out more every year than it takes it. We are borrowing money from the foreigners, like the Chinese and Saudis to pay current benefits. As the huge Baby Boom generation retires, the amount of debt we incur each year will quickly escalate until it blows up in our face and old people without resources really do wind up in the street. So, what happens when my generation starts to retire in 15 to 20 years and what will happen to my kids? We will all be left holding the bag. There is a financial MODEL that describes this. The model is called a Pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme or a Bernie Madoff scheme. The people who get it in early make out like bandits and the people who get it late get screwed. That is exactly how the Social Security system will play out. The fact is that the Social Security is a pay-as-you-go welfare system that transfers money from young, struggling families to relatively well-to-do retired people. There isn't any "trust fund". The words "trust fund" are used to describe a mountain of debt. A mountain of debt is NOT a trust fund. It's a mountain of debt. Today, the mountain of debt in the Social Security system is so great that it cannot be paid. Peel away the emotion, the Orwellian language about the "trust fund", and the other political rhetoric, and just look at the financial facts. Then this all becomes very clear. Rick Perry is absolutely right and I am actually impressed that a politician would tell the truth about this. It's truly amazing. The big question is what can be done? Long term, people need to be able to save for their own retirements. Social Security needs to be taken back to it's roots as a program that supplements the income of retirees who are truly poor, through no fault of their own. Today, 25% of people over 65 have pension or investment income that places them in the "wealthy" category. They still get Social Security benefits, so long as they don't work for their income. Why should young struggling families hand money over the wealthy retired people? They shouldn't. Means testing Social Security will go a long way to make it solvent for the future. When Social Security was implemented, the retirement age was 65. The average life expectancy was 59 for men and 61 for women. Most people didn't live long enough to get a check. Today, the retirement age is still 65. However, life expectancy is 73 for men and 78 for women. The math just doesn't work. We need to gradually raise the retirement age to keep up with life expectancy. Bravo to Perry for telling it like it is. I certainly agree with Ed Schultz that a lot of young people will find this message appealing. The other group who should find this message appealing are wealthy retirees who are stealing from their children's and grandchildren's future. Will they finally put their selfishness aside and say: "no more"? Probably not, but we'll see.
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#177. To: nolu chan (#174)
Your chart is pretty discouraging. Does it include government workers in those numbers? If it does then wouldn't you say that the actual number is quite lower as they add nothing new to the pie?
Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. You can't impeach a POTUS elected in 2008 for a SCOTUS decision made in 1972. You do not make a rational point.
It is color of law you pretend pro lifer. You're pro abortion. That is why every president that you have ever voted for in your entire life is pro abortion. You're not fulling anyone.
Richard Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun who wrote the Roe V. Wade decision. So, using your emotion trumping rational thinking modus of argument, no Republican deserves to be elected to the White House after this man wrote it and voted for it. As for my view on abortion, I have consistently made it clear for a great many years what it is, and your froth at the mouth claim I am actually for abortion might give you a feeling as warm as a pee in the swiming pool, but that does not mean it has any veracity. You have no standing as my agent to represent my political view points.
The proof is you voted for a man who is the most pro abortion in our history. That is like saying you love Jews and posting at freedom4um and voting for Hitler.
I do like Jewish people. I just have no use for Zionism. As for your hyperbolic claim that President Obama would scare the crap out of Darth Vader because he is so evil, save it for the election.
A president is under no obligation to enforce supreme court decisions. President Andrew Jackson famously told the supreme court to stuff it. Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
And it is a shame Jackson had not been appropiately sanctioned with empeachment for this concern to support this unconstitutional action. The interment of Japanese Americans in the emotional hysteria at the start of WW II was also a retracted error that was quite unconstitutional. All this proves is the system has human failings to it. So?
Social only needs to be modified to account for the change in demographics. http://www.ssa.gov/history/ponzi.htm The Logic of Pay-As-You-Go Systems In contrast to a Ponzi scheme, dependent upon an unsustainable progression, a common financial arrangement is the so-called "pay-as-you-go" system. Some private pension systems, as well as Social Security, have used this design. A pay-as-you-go system can be visualized as a pipeline, with money from current contributors coming in the front end and money to current beneficiaries paid out the back end. There is a superficial analogy between pyramid or Ponzi schemes and pay-as-you- go programs in that in both money from later participants goes to pay the benefits of earlier participants. But that is where the similarity ends. So we could image that at any given time there might be, say, 40 million people receiving benefits at the back end of the pipeline; and as long as we had 40 million people paying taxes in the front end of the pipe, the program could be sustained forever. It does not require a doubling of participants every time a payment is made to a current beneficiary, or a geometric increase in the number of participants. (There does not have to be precisely the same number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time--there just needs to be a fairly stable relationship between the two.) As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme. In this context, it would be most accurate to describe Social Security as a transfer payment--transferring income from the generation of workers to the generation of retirees--with the promise that when current workers retire, there will be another generation of workers behind them who will be the source of their Social Security retirement payments. So you could say that Social Security is a transfer payment, but it is not a pyramid scheme. There is a huge difference between the two, and only a superficial similarity. If the demographics of the population were stable, then a pay-as-you-go system would not have demographically-driven financing ups and downs and no thoughtful person would be tempted to compare it to a Ponzi arrangement. However, since population demographics tend to rise and fall, the balance in pay-as-you-go systems tends to rise and fall as well. During periods when more new participants are entering the system than are receiving benefits there tends to be a surplus in funding (as in the early years of Social Security). During periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit. This vulnerability to demographic ups and downs is one of the problems with pay-as-you-go financing. But this problem has nothing to do with Ponzi schemes, or any other fraudulent form of financing, it is simply the nature of pay-as-you-go systems.
My bowls are fine, thank you, I don't require bran.
"...all of the equations in neoclassical economics are rubbish. The differential equations describe nothing. Economics is not about mathematics, it is about the human being." Sandeep Jaitly
ROTFLOL
"...all of the equations in neoclassical economics are rubbish. The differential equations describe nothing. Economics is not about mathematics, it is about the human being." Sandeep Jaitly
It's a presidents duty to ignore the human failings of the supreme court and uphold the constitution and rule of law, as they swore in their oath of office. Jackson upheld his oath of office. FDR did not because he was a statist progressive communist, like Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Clinton, Bush(x2), and Obama. The whole later bunch went along with SCOTUS rulings that violated the constitution. It's been a very long time since we had a law abiding president.
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
Jackson ignored his duty to enforce a High Court decision is very clear in our system of government. The U.S. Constitution has three branches of government sharing power to create checks and balances in the system. Jackson did what he did not so much because he was just in ignoring his constitutional duty he swore an oath to preform; he did it because of the greed and racism of those lobbying him to do so. There was not a thing that was law abiding in his action any more then the graft and greed that those agents contracting to provide food and medicine to Native Americans forced onto small reservations were guilty of was right or legal. This application of Apartheid that was an inspiration for concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War in South Africa or those of Nazi Germany in WW II was very unjust as well and this action of Jackson has put blood on his hands for many decades after his presidency. Manifest Destiny and the Papal Bull called the Doctrine of Discovery that were much the basis of the Trail of Tears was evil and responsible for many deaths and acts of genocide after the Indigenous People of North America were largely rubbed out helped kill many people for generations in other parts of the world. What Jckson did was predicated on greed and hate and helped empower and create much death and suffering in the world. There was nothing good or just about this violation of his oath of office to uphold the U.S. Constitutuion.
I think you lie. Show me in the constitution where it says the Presidents job is to enforce Supreme court decisions. I read that it is his duty to enforce the constitution. You're a very feminine fake poser.
I know that should the SCOTUS overturn Roe v. Wade and a future POTUS then sign an executive order authorizing abortion in spite of it, you would be howling bloody murder that he or she has no right to go against this new hypothetical ruling. Now as for the charge I am feminine, that is an interesting slant of insult. Does this mean you view over half the population of the U.S. as inferior to those of us who are fueled by testaterone instead of estrogen? I am much amused.
A proper ruling would simply acknowledge the error that the evil court made and correct it. They are people and citizens. You are not pro life. You vote for anti life politicians that give kids no choice. Democrats are anti kid. They hate kids. Can't stand the idea of them being born.
If you are female if is good to be feminine. If you are male you come across as some kind of faggot freak.
This view would help give you a flunking grade in any 400 level course on the Supreme Court in the United States in any university of the land. The rest of your post is merely spiteful and quite irrational. You fail to succeed in the task to bait me. I am merely amused by your antics here.
You and me bofe.
Bait you? What is this crap about baiting you? Bait you for what? I simply tell it the way it is.
I will readily admit that sometimes I say things to rile you guys up. You never know if I am serious or not.
I can push your buttons like a walk in the park, Taliban boy.
Gee Dr Ruth, thsnks for sharing your master baiting skills. Most gays are very masculine and unless you know them well on the personal level, you would have no clue to their sexual orientation. ;-D
... the (successful) calls to "level the playing field." First, it is not a sporting event, and second, there is not supposed to be a level playing field. The original idea was that it was better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted. Prosecutors hide evidence and present perjured testimony (testilying) and judges look the other way.
I wouldn't know. Apparently you know very well. By the way it is preference not orientation. To say it is orientation is an insult to God.
Not so; I always take insanity from you with a grain of salt. So you don't relish having veracity when you post. That is your problem, not ours.
I've seen that first hand. That is why I don't like pigs or judges. Are you a lawyer or just a knowledgeable layman? Or maybe you used to be one?
Government workers are included. They pay into SS and receive benefits just as non-government workers do. The charts from SS show there is a real problem. Regardless of what we call it or who we blame, there is a problem that needs fixing.
I agree; and this is a big reason I cannot support Capital Punishment as being moral or just.- Good post. ;-)
Mike, I'm happy you showed back up here. I enjoy the banter. Stoner is an ideologue and a lost sheep at that.
I know they do that. My father retired from the government after retiring from the Army. Anyway. If it says that it takes 3 workers to support 1 social security recipient. Since government workers salary is entirely compromised of tax money. They don't add anything new to the government treasury. So it is actually less then 3 workers paying for each retiree. For if those private sector employees didn't work then the government people wouldnt' have a job in the first place. It is just a more detailed way of looking at it.
Merci mom ami. Tu es tres gentile. Vraiment. ;-D
Whatever happened to folks retiring after 35 years (+/-) a few and getting the gold watch and enjoying their twilight years? Answer me that, Stoner. The corporate masters want them to work for beans until they're 70.
That is why I work for myself.
Those are the nice ones. Most want the retirement age to be 70 and have people drop dead at 69 which would be an appropriate number as they would then be really fucked.
I know a guy about a dozen years ago who got his first SS check and died of a massive heart attack about a week or two later. His wife baptized him with tap water as he laid on the floor.
Your scenario only works if each of your 40 million workers pays the full amount of the average retirement benefit each month. That would be about $1200 per month plus the administrative costs. That is not happening. It is impossible to grow the population enough to support the system, as it is, in a stable and sustainable manner. People have worked and paid in for 40 years and retired and now the government must diminish their benefits or raise taxes to pay for them. A ratio of 2:1 does not work.
Sad. My Mom died of cancer at age 67 right after she retired and had been holding out for the highest retirement S.S. payment level one can get at age 69. Death can be as unfair as life often is. She was quite the horse fancier and competed in horse shows when she was younger in Connecticut. You two would of had much in common to talk about. I still own most of her tack and her best English saddle.
Does each citizen get to chose for himself whether to obey judicial interpretation of the Constitution? If SCOTUS reversed Roe v. Wade and declared abortion unconstitutional, could the president pass an executive order making it lawful? Could the Governor's or State Legislatures make it lawful in their state? Could the President or a State simply refuse to enforce the new interpretation and let an abortion clinic stay open? What is the point of judicial interpretation if not even the government has to pay any attention to it?
It seems to me it is to overthrow and lie about what the constitution says. At least often that is the case.
Comments (217 - 228) not displayed.
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#178. To: A K A Stone (#176)
#179. To: Ferret Mike (#178)
Roe v. Wade is the law of the land.
#180. To: A K A Stone (#179)
(Edited)
#181. To: Ferret Mike (#180)
As for my view on abortion, I have consistently made it clear for a great many years what it is,
#182. To: A K A Stone (#181)
(Edited)
#183. To: Ferret Mike, A K A Stone, *Liberal Rehab Staff* (#178)
Roe v. Wade is the law of the land
President Andrew Jackson, who had the executive responsibility of enforcement of the laws, stated, "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can."
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#184. To: hondo68 (#183)
(Edited)
#185. To: nolu chan (#144)
#186. To: A K A Stone (#173)
Your bran doesn't work correctly.
#187. To: A K A Stone (#173)
#188. To: Ferret Mike, A K A Stone (#184)
the system has human failings
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#189. To: hondo68 (#188)
(Edited)
#190. To: Ferret Mike (#189)
Jackson ignored his duty to enforce a High Court decision is very clear in our system of government.
#191. To: A K A Stone (#190)
"I think you lie. Show me in the constitution where it says the Presidents job is to enforce Supreme court decisions. I read that it is his duty to enforce the constitution."
#192. To: Ferret Mike (#191)
I know that should the SCOTUS overturn Roe v. Wade and a future POTUS then sign an executive order authorizing abortion in spite of it, you would be howling bloody murder that he or she has no right to go against this new hypothetical ruling.
#193. To: Ferret Mike (#191)
Now as for the charge I am feminine, that is an interesting slant of insult. Does this mean you view over half the population of the U.S. as inferior to those of us who are fueled by testaterone instead of estrogen?
#194. To: A K A Stone (#192)
(Edited)
"A proper ruling would simply acknowledge the error that the evil court made and correct it. They are people and citizens."
#195. To: Ferret Mike (#194)
I am merely amused by your antics here.
#196. To: Ferret Mike (#194)
You fail to succeed in the task to bait me.
#197. To: Fred Mertz (#195)
#198. To: A K A Stone (#197)
#199. To: A K A Stone (#193)
#200. To: Ferret Mike, A K A Stone (#175)
Our system of justice which is predicated on the notion that one is innocent until proven guilty beyond a resonable doubt is compromised by....
#201. To: Ferret Mike (#199)
Most gays are very masculine and unless you know them well on the personal level, you would have no clue to their sexual orientation. ;-D
#202. To: A K A Stone (#197)
"I will readily admit that sometimes I say things to rile you guys up. You never know if I am serious or not."
#203. To: nolu chan (#200)
Prosecutors hide evidence and present perjured testimony (testilying) and judges look the other way.
#204. To: A K A Stone (#177)
Does it include government workers in those numbers? If it does then wouldn't you say that the actual number is quite lower as they add nothing new to the pie?
#205. To: nolu chan (#200)
"Prosecutors hide evidence and present perjured testimony (testilying) and judges look the other way."
#206. To: Ferret Mike (#202)
#207. To: nolu chan (#204)
Government workers are included. They pay into SS and receive benefits just as non-government workers do.
#208. To: Fred Mertz (#206)
#209. To: A K A Stone (#207)
#210. To: Fred Mertz (#209)
#211. To: Fred Mertz (#209)
"The corporate masters want them to work for beans until they're 70."
#212. To: Ferret Mike (#211)
#213. To: NewsJunky (#185)
So we could image that at any given time there might be, say, 40 million people receiving benefits at the back end of the pipeline; and as long as we had 40 million people paying taxes in the front end of the pipe, the program could be sustained forever.
#214. To: Fred Mertz (#212)
#215. To: A K A Stone, Ferret Mike (#190)
Show me in the constitution where it says the Presidents job is to enforce Supreme court decisions. I read that it is his duty to enforce the constitution.
#216. To: nolu chan (#215)
What is the point of judicial interpretation
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