Bravo, Rick Perry: ‘Ponzi Scheme’ Talk Is Leadership
Some might argue — and liberals do — that the Social Security trust fund, which stored on paper all of the surpluses of FICA taxes paid in by baby boomers, could now be used to pay them the retirement benefits that can’t be gotten from their offspring. Alas, the Social Security trust fund contains nothing but a pile of IOUs in the form of Treasury claims, which in order to pay in real money depend upon hugely increasing taxation on younger workers.
But don’t take my word for that. Please, don’t. Take this official confirmation from the Clinton administration’s Office of Management and Budget in 2000:
These [Trust Fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures — but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, make it easier for the government to pay benefits.
Now, that’s the truth. And it was written by Clinton’s OMB director, Jack Lew, who also happens to be Obama’s OMB director.
But in February of this year, Jack Lew wrote in USA Today that the Social Security Trust Fund is solvent until the year 2037 — surely based upon those “bookkeeping” gimmick IOUs, which he forgot to mention this time.
Republicans in Congress are working diligently to produce a real plan to modify the Ponzi elements built into the Social Security system, while the Obama administration continues to lie through its bookkeeping-gimmick teeth. And the alternative-reality left gets mightily annoyed when fiscal realists go after the most sacrosanct pillar in the liberal cathedral.
Rick Perry ought to be considered a one-man Reformation truth-squad every time he utters the phrase “Ponzi scheme” to foaming-at-the-mouth liberal pontificators.
Charles Krauthammer is also a Social Security truth-teller. In March, he wrote of Lew’s duplicitous attempt to shore up Obama’s Social Security propaganda, spelling out the Reformation’s argument in demographic enlightenment format:
But demography is destiny. The ratio of workers to retirees is shrinking year by year. Instead of Social Security producing annual surpluses that reduce the federal deficit, it is now producing shortfalls that increase the federal deficit — $37 billion in 2010. It will only get worse as the baby boomers retire.
In 1950, the worker-to-retiree ratio for Social Security was 16-1. By 2010 that ratio had shrunk to 3-1. By 2030, it is projected to be 2-1. Only in a Keynesian la-la land like the one inhabited by President Obama could this spell anything but Ponzi-scheme apocalypse.
Choices have consequences. And the millions of Americans’ choices not to bear many children, coupled with irresponsible political choices to raid the Social Security trust fund, have rendered “the greatest Ponzi scheme ever devised” just one more bitter fruit in the diminishing Keynesian economist’s orchard.
And Don’t Miss a PJTV Exclusive: “Roger Simon Talks with Perry Adviser Dave Carney About the Governor’s Stance on Social Security”
Too right. Another well known name who acknowledged the truth about SS during the Clinton years? That known right-winger, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I remember his grilling of Commissioner Chater over exactly this. People need to hear and acknowledge the truth. We cannot begin to think that we can keep a safety net for our elderly if we cannot admit that the one we have does not work.
Perry is not the ideal candidate however it is refreshing to hear someone tell the truth for once. Social security needs free market reforms or it will not continue. It is broke and the government broke it. Now someone has to fix it. Job one is to tell the misinformed and propagandized public the truth. Quit lying. Also it is time to stand up to the MEDIA and tell them to stop lying too. Job one stop buying their mags, their cable, their products, turn off your TV and your radio and ignore these scum bags. Put them out of business.
Go Perry!!
George Bush said it 5 years ago, when the fix would have been much cheaper. The GOP cowards and fools in Congress all ran away like they were on fire.
Take a listen to Ron Paul. No investment can be anything other than a ponzi scheme as long as the FED continues to print more fiat money lowering the value all that has been saved or invested where increase from interest is smaller than the rate of continuous credit based inflation. The enumerable list of parasites attached to the scheme is is frightening even to the novice.
While wages increased by more than 400 %, I watched inflation (devalued dollar) outpace all negotiated wage increases for 38 years in the sweat box that hired me while trying to enlighten others that the only increase that could possibly maintain purchasing power parity would have to be adjusted weekly for the effect of inflation just as manufacturing costs must be regulated to insure profit.
A study of political history at the turn of the last century will reveal the enacting of a conspiracy that has devalued American buying power by 95% and continues to expand the government box jelly fish with more poisonous tentacles than any species in nature.
Tommy this column speaks the truth about Social Security. I remember when it was being installed and how its advocates made the hard sell to just cover the smallest portion of low pay. However the seeds of growth were planted with that toe in the door. That increase was planned from the beginning and reported in the Reader’s Digest sometime about 1940 as a page filler. It was accurate.
There is no way for Social Security to be compatible with a free market solution. The liberal wants to do away with consequences for being irresponsible and that is not possible. We need to quit playing politics and take a good, hard look at the system and its justification, then revise it to fit conditions as we find them.
It is our responsibility to prosper under conditions as we find them. A wall motto I found on a filling station about 1950
Remember, it was God, Himself, that initiated private property rights and Social Security completely ignores private property rights. The slave must be driven to work while the owner will work hard under his own driving. We can choose to be the slave and let someone else do the driving or we can elect to be free and take the consequenses of our own driving. Just as driving down the highway we must control the vehicle with small corrections of the steering wheel and, individually, that steering is done by our conscience and training.
At no time does the private individual have any claim on Social Security. That is strictly an illusion maintained by our government. Consider.
You have no choice about the tax. You pay.
You have no control over who is to receive benefits and when. This can be changed at will. We must establish eligibility to government satisfaction which is all in bureaucratic hands that draw a good salary from those same funds.
You have no control over how the surplus is invested but the government does not invest in private stocks and bonds. Therefore all funds invested must be repaid by the taxpayer — Double taxation?
A foreigner working legally in the United States and paying into Social Security has no equity to draw on when he decides to return to his home country. This has been tested in our courts. The upshot is that all funds do belong to the government and do and will remain under government control, including spending on social engineering paid at public expense any way you cut it. Social Security just allows us to move it off budget now and to be included later.
As a nation we bought this pig in a poke and it did turn into pork but because we supported it we are obligated to those we have forced to depend on it but we are not forced to continue a loosing program. We need to change it and Rick Perry says we can. I say we can and we must or it will bury us. We will always have the poor with us. That should not hinder our prosperity but we should always be willing to help the poor where they can be helped, Some poverty is always accidental but a lot of poverty is by choice. Prosperity always requires a certain level of discipline and there are always those who will resist that discipline.
Kyle-Anne, it is not merely a Ponzi scheme.
A person below the age of majority is not capable of giving consent to a contract or scheme under the law. A child of tender years being absolutely protected, except if that scheme is cooked up by the government.
In addition, any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe a) they would suffer serious harm or physical restraint if they did not perform such labor or services:
b) the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process;
if they did not engage in involuntary servitude or forced labor to the benefit of adults…has a name.
Our children and grandchildren have been placed in a contract in which they are forced to involuntarily agree to work in fiscal slavery to support a system that is likely to provide them zero compensation for their efforts.
Moreover, they are contracted, without their consent to carry over 50% of those who pay virtually nothing into the system, essentially the fiscal slavemasters who shackle them with the chains of legislation designed to keep them indentured servants for the whole of their lives.
This “me generation” has passed onto its children and grandchildren the privilege of being beasts of burden. Devoid of opportunity, drowning in debt, invaded in every privacy, groped, and restricted in every choice.
The legacy of leftism is enslavement. The bloated, corpulent, gluttony of state masters placing the yoke around the necks of our sons and daughters suits the “me generation” just fine. Time for the “rich” to pull the plow as children, while they lay on the couch and fire up another doobie.
It’s enough to make a baby boomer proud. Devised a scheme that puts Charles Ponzi and Simon Legree to shame. Now, if only they can find a way to blame the Republicans…
.
CF,
You are right, it’s a mess. There aren’t enough “new” investors to pay for all the retirees. But one of the really ugly parts of the equation appears when you examine what exactly the old folks NEED money FOR.
A crucial component of “old age” living expenses, is the all too often incredibly high local property taxes, that go on and on forever.
Retirees who wish to simply “maintain” their standard of living are still forced to support the bloated corrupt and inefficient Local Governments as their first order of business, lest they become homeless.
In the case of my father, who’s home was paid off long ago, and has no pressing medical costs (not on any prescription medication) the cost of local Property Tax in New Jersey is $9600 per year.
That’s $800 a month
$200.00 a week.
Imagine at 80+ years old, every Monday, before you can eat or flush the toilet,
you’ll need to come up with 200 bucks for the government by Friday.
Until you die, or give up your home.
Its THE largest single monthly/quarterly/yearly expense, larger than his Mortgage ever was,
greater than his food , medical, utility and transportation costs COMBINED.
And it just so happens to be where the Lions Share of his “Social Security benefits” go, every month. Thank God dad has his (private sector) pension, and some very modest investment income to actually “live off ” of.
Its more than just SSI deductions and demographics. Its every layer of government spending such obscene amounts of money, that the taxes from the youth must now go to pay the TAXES on the elderly.
Not for their food, comfort, or well being, but their TAXES.
The Social Security mess is inexorably tied the appetite of your local Police Department and Teachers Union.
You cannot “fix” one without taming the other
Appreciate you post, Root. The old saying that one bad apple will spoil the barrel is true. A dried up apple is not a bad apple for it is not loaded with parasites in the form of mold or bacteria but a bad apple is infected and it spreads that infection to all it touches. Social Security touches everything and so it has corrupted politics, hiring, firing and just about anything we could mention. It is loaded with corruption.
This “me generation” has passed onto its children and grandchildren the privilege of being beasts of burden. Devoid of opportunity, drowning in debt, invaded in every privacy, groped, and restricted in every choice.
Not disagreeing with your post, in fact I find it compelling. I use the term “economic pedophilia” to describe what politicians are doing to the younger generations. They’re screwing the kids economic future for their political benefit today.
However, the term “Me Generation” is most often given to the Baby Boomers. While Boomers as a group are guilty of many things (and I’m a late Boomer born in ’57), most of the Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid mess was the fault of earlier generations. Social Security itself was enacted in the mid-1930s, about 10 years before the first Boomers were born. Medicare & Medicaid were enacted in the mid-1960s when the oldest Boomers were only in their early 20s.
Boomers like myself have worked our entire careers paying higher and higher SS/Medicare taxes. Now, the oldest Boomers are starting to retire after a lifetime of paying those taxes. Those of us who prepared for our retirements by paying off all debt and living below our means are best set to live without Social Security if it comes to that. However, millions of poorer people who did pay their taxes are facing a bleek future.
This isn’t going to end well.
This url could almost be a form letter response to most of what is posted on this website.
Copy/past to read it and weep if you dare, or if you truly do love your country more than your Party.
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
Right, Sarah Palin believes racial minorities are not real Americans. That’s really a great link you have there! It gives you an elated feeling of self-righteous on the cheap, doesn’t it? If you keep posting that link, hair will grow on your palms.
It is truly a shame that so many supposed adults are so willing to fight for the enslavement of their children and grandchildren. I would expect nothing less from the me generation. They will long be worm food before the true ramifications of all they have done comes fully home to roost. In the near future we will be unable to service our national debt and we will slip into third world status all because these people wanted to live it up in their gray years.
Now is the time to stop the madness and fix the Ponzi scheme once and for all. Privatize the retirement fund like Chile and let the money each person earns be applied to them. If they are poor and that isn’t much then a safety net is appropriate, but there are far too many people that are sucking far too much out of the system with no regard to the consequences to our children and grandchildren.
One more thought about “leadership” and telling the truth. It seems the republican primary is going to be the place where we will see whether the American citizen can “handle the truth” or not. It is not just about social security that we need to be truthful. Here are a few hard truths that need to be debated:
1. The proper limited role of government and regulation.
2. The primacy of the American free enterprise system for dealing with the economic growth and in creating and sustaining real jobs.
3. The bankruptcy and therefore reform needed in medicare.
4. the bankruptcy and therfore reform needed in medicaid.
5. The potential bankruptcy and monumental fiasco of Obamacare and the need to rip this out by the roots.
6. The lack of science in the global warming debate and the need to reject this movement and the potential carbon tax schemes and power grabs of it’s supporters.
All of the above are issues that are being lied about and currently supported by liberals, the current administration, and some of the mushy minded republican candidates. The candidate who will tell the truth about these will have my vote and hopefully be a breath of fresh air to a public that has been abused and propagandized enough by the political elites of both parties not to mention the MSM on these issues.
Mr Perry are you the man?
Your clear intention is to copy Rahm Emanuel’s infamous assertion that “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Emanuel and Obama wanted to use this crisis as an excuse to remake America along European socialist lines. The public revolted against this; they wanted Obama to fix the economic crisis ONLY.
And now you’re doing the same thing–and the public will reject it for the same reason.
Fannie and Freddie were far more responsible for the mess we’re in than Social Security. And Obama has prolonged that agony. But you’re fixated on running against FDR and his New Deal, which is the right-wing equivalent of “Never let a crisis go to waste.” And if Perry wins the Presidency, you’re hoping that he’ll use the economic slump as an excuse to throw out SS and Medicare and remake America along right-wing lines, right?
I’m pleading with my conservatives to LET THIS CRISIS GO TO WASTE. Focus on what’s really important here–the economic stagnation and high unemployment which Social Security had nothing to do with. And campaign on fixing that. Leave everything else for another day.
LET THIS CRISIS GO TO WASTE.
someone fears for their free government check…
Do ya think?
Perry is exactly on point.
Self-styled conservatives can be as big thieves as liberals are.
This flavor wants to confiscate the hundreds of thousands of dollars most Senior citizens have paid in taxes for Social Security.
It’s “the principle” you see.
These yahoos haven’t saved a dime in their lives, and they want to claw it back by stealing from other people.
Theft is theft. These guys are into it, big time. The inner marxist comes out in spades once they see an advantage for themselves.
problem is they haven’t been taxed to pay for S.S. they’ve simply been taxed and that money was simply spent and is now simply gone. every penny used to fund S.S. checks comes from current workers or borrowing, so who is stealing from who?
Sorry shoey, the contract is clear and it has been reiterated for 70 years. Anybody can find out what their SS security payout will be. The SSA sends out a statement every year.
The fact that politicians have spent FICA on other stuff they weren’t authorized to spend it on is a problem, but it doesn’t negate the contract.
If the system was doomed and hopeless, the hyperbole might be justified. But the facts are that the system is easily fixable. After all, when it all started, the average lifespan was 65. Now its approaching 80. That’s a clue, isn’t it.
Good thinking, Tommy. All I can expand on is discipline. As I have said, we keep our vehicles under control with little effort and small corrections. Discipline is like that. You hardly notice when a correction has been made under good discipline. Our adversaries call discipline hate because it does not allow indulgence. Indulgence allows corruption and corruption leads to death. Where is the hate?
Two points that should amuse us all. One, in order to ‘stimulate’ employment, the government is to cut the payroll tax for employee and employer, which tax funds Social Security. These cuts merely bring closer the date of eventual insolvency. Two, the government, by its legalisation of birth control and abortion, cuts down on the number of new taxpayers to fund Social Security. Essentially, we are talking about government induced diminishing returns, which will draw much, much nearer the date of insolvency. Opening the gates to millions of illegal immigrants cannot make up for these losses; they simply do not add up in numbers or taxes. This isn’t even a Ponzi scheme. It’s worse. I cannot describe it in any other words than a total scam to enrich the politicians and the bureaucrats. Oh, yes. Another point. If people realise that they are being forced into serfdom or peonage, they won’t conceive or bear children to be born into slavery. Government will then have to outlaw birth control and abortion to maintain the slave population. How does that grab you?
I’ll say it again: Social Security is NOT a Ponzi scheme, any more than any other entitlement is. Perry is flat wrong about that.
Shriver: “Social Security is … fully dependent upon adequate numbers of new “investors” (workers) to pay off prior “investors” (retirees).”
That principle is NO different from ANY other entitlement:
Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, even federal disaster relief. They *all* depend on having adequate numbers of taxpayers paying enough into the system so that others can receive adequate money. And like SS, those programs can get out of balance when the number of recipients grows relative to the number of payers.
Are you suggesting that all entitlements are Ponzi schemes? That they all should be abolished before they collapse?
Social Security, unlike a true Ponzi scheme, was never designed to depend on an exponentially growing number of payers into the system. Instead, it was designed to depend on simply placing the entire U.S. work force into the system and go with that. SS is getting out of balance due to changing demographics–we have more retirees relative to workers. But that doesn’t make it a Ponzi scheme. That’s no different from food stamps getting out of balance when 9% unemployment results in lots more people on food stamps. There are solutions for both–what’s lacking is the political will to put them into effect.
By your definition YES they are all Ponzi Schemes. By size there is no comparison. SS = 24% of GDP. Food stamps,subsidized housing = 1%
“fully dependent upon adequate numbers of new investors” your words is the definition of a Ponzi Scheme. With retirees living longer and no baby boom generation that we had after WW2 SS is not sustainable in it’s current format.
FYI the life expectency when enacted was 68, hence you began collecting at 65.
I can’t collect until im 67, this is the only change of significance since enacted. You either have to change the payout or age of collection or it fails
YES IT IS A PONZI SCHEME, look up the definition. And by the way he was deported back to Italy and died broke just like SS will go bust unless it,s adjusted
SS is not an entitlement. Your benefits are proportional to contribution. Pay in more and you get more. But your money is not saved or invested. The SS administration can not point to the investments anymore than Madoff could.
That is a Ponzi scheme.
Your identifying points of a Ponzi scheme seems to be correct, so let’s test it…
“SS is not an entitlement.” Madoff was also not running an entitlement program.
“Your benefits are proportional to contribution.” Also true for Madoff
“Pay in more and you get more.” Again, true for Madoff.
“But your money is not saved or invested.” Madoff.
“The SS administration can not point to the investments anymore than Madoff could.” That’s a bingo.
Also, since there are no investments (In both cases, money used for purposes other than what was intended, claimed or promised), new investors must continually be recruited.
Eventually, the scheme must and will collapse. Madoff’s has collapsed, and we know that Social Security has such a rendezvous with bankruptcy– unless many more investors can be recruited or the fake investment profits are paid out slower.
When Social Security’s “business plan” is interchangeable with Madoff’s…
People should be responsible for their own retirements.
SS was forced on us to lead us to Socialism and provide votes for Democrats.
It is inter-generational theft.
It is not right to force people to pay for the retirement of other people.
SS is a lie, highway robbery, and a poison pill for the USA.
SS and other entitlements have corrupted our thinking and behavior. We act and think like collectivists when it comes to fundamental things like retirement and healthcare.
Very much agree with you, eman. There are many witnesses to what you say.
Social Security is a keystone to Socialism. Take it out and the structure will collapse. That does not make Social Security desirable since it is pitched to our lusts and not to our needs.
I can’t believe you are that naive, stupid, abysmally ignorant, or just ‘high” on something. Where did you study economics? Social Security deductions from your, and my, paychecks were to have been invested into the Social Security Trust Fund. They were originally, but ‘free-spending” Democrats created their own “ponzi scheme” with these funds. You blame any imbalance on ‘demographics” – -WRONG!! Your free-spending Democrats(with support of some Republicans)broadened entitlements in order to bring more of their supporters into the Democrat Plantation. Your demographic argument has so many flaws, not the least of which is – the more our population increases, the greater is the number of “non-contributors” to the Social Security program. The new investors into the program will not realize their promised benefits, unless. . . .now you take it from there. I’m really curious because I am 85 years of age.
listen to the freeloaders wail… it’s like music to my ears.
Claims1 I am very interested in that trust fund investment. You can explain what it was and how it worked? How was the SS trust fund compensated by its investment?
Of course. Well put.
The angriest people about SS are the younger ones who think they will get nothing from it. The chances of that happening are as close to zero as it’s possible to get.
Wait until they are in their 50′s. The song always changes…except for the 1% who somehow hit the jackpot financially. And even they should beware: 1929, 1972-1974, 1987, 1999-2001, 2008. And that’s just the mega stock market crashes in the US. There have been many other burst bubbles around the world for all sorts of financial assets, including, as we are now painfully aware, real estate. It can all disappear in the blink of an eye.
Perry will have more to say on the subject. He’s pretty shrewd. He’s probably the spider at the center of the web on this one.
Even Chris “Tingle Up His Leg Over Obama” Matthews admits that SS is a Ponzi scheme.
Or is Chris a secret conservative at MSNBC?
Social Security is welfare for old people. No one likes it when that is pointed out, but it is the truth. Will I cash my checks when I am old enough to collect them? Of course I will. But I knew, from my parents and grandparents, when I started paying into the system at age 14 that the system was a Ponzi scheme. Every dime I ever paid into the system, is long gone. And every dollar I collect will be paid with dollars depreciated by Alan Greenspan’s and Ben Bernanke’s inflation.
A long time ago I sold my “regular” stocks and bough gold, silver, and mining stocks. It was the smartest move I ever made, and based on the fact that Bernanke is one of the dumbest people on the face of the earth.
I also buy cigarettes, even though I do not smoke. Why? When the SHTF and a loaf of bread costs $43, I’ll bet I can trade a pack of Marlboros for something I want.
I’ll tell you two groups of people who are having absolutely no problems have more children: Hispanics and Muslims. The only group of people in Europe where the birth rate is exploding are Muslims, mostly because of the generous welfare benefits that can be obtained in Europe. And yet, for all the Europeans are doing for Muslims in terms of housing, education, and massive welfare benefits, the Muslims still hate the Europeans. Nice.
The only group of people that has no problem having a lot of kids in this country are Hispanics. The birth rate among hispanics in America is exploding. You can read more about it here:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2758
For Hipanics who have come here illegally, this baby boom is mostly because of the jobs and the generous welfare benefits that can be obtained in the United States, especially when it comes to education and medical care. And just wait at what will happen to the illegal hispanic population when Obamacare kicks in.
For Hispanics who are here legally, though, there are probably more cultural and religious reasons to having more kids, which is a big help to a shrinking American population. But it IS depressing to see all of these protests around, primarily in the western part of the United States, of Hispanics demanding more benefits and amnesty for coming here illegally. These displays only hurt their image in this country. But the big question for the future is, will Hispanics assimilate into the American society and culture, as they always have, or will they become more like the Muslims in Europe, withdrawn into their own little ghettos and refusing to assimilate into the nation that took them in? If it’s the latter and their population continues to skyrocket like it is doing, then the United States is going to have one big problem on its hands.
I think Hispanics are more likely to assimilate if they’re allowed a path to citizenship other than “anchor babies”. From what I read and hear, I get the general impression that conservatives have become like the “Know-Nothings” of one hundred years ago and Democrats like the way things are because they get “serfdom” from illegals. It’s commonly acknowledged that world population will decrease beginning around 2050 or so due to decreasing fertility. We need our immigrants to become good citizens! And I don’t think the wall will keep them out if Mexico continues to be a disaster…
They have a path to citizenship.
The same one that every other immigrant has. If that’s not sufficient, tough.
Pardon me I live in California and it is already a big problem here. Personally I don’t hold out for illegals to assimilate, or they would learn english but they don’t. They expect us to learn spanish. I am fluent in four languages but spanish isn’t one of them. Moreover, the young people, teens etc. make strong demands in schools and other places for rights that they believe are owed to them. Their expectations of us gringos are high and they are encouraged by the various “civil” rights groups, non-profits and general left wing ilk. If they don’t get instant results they resort to destruction of property, threatening behaviour and vandalism. Yes I am generalizing based on personal observation.
Giving a medal for courage to Rick Perry for his comments on our Social Security ‘Ponzi scheme’ would lower the standards for valor. Yes, it is refreshing to hear a politician speak with candor, but what the Governor is saying essentially is that we’re spending money we don’t really have. Let me see: Federal spending that increases annually without sufficient revenues to support it (hence the deficits and debt); expensive and eternal wars that are ‘off budget;’ and entitlement programs for public service employees at the state and local levels that are simply not sustainable, given the gross imbalance between promises made and revenues anticipated. One might say that today’s government is itself a Ponzi scheme. But now that we’ve identified the problem, what exactly shall we do to correct it? Thoughts, Governor? All of us truth-loving patriots out here who are ready to bear the burden are waiting to hear.
I suspect the Gov. has a plan.
I don’t think he is naive enough to open that Pandora’s Box without having something in his pocket to back him up.
He already told you what his plan was.
Perry intends to make government “as inconsequential to your lives as possible.”
That should take care of most of the issues you have asked about, as well as a lot of other nonsense that lawmakers have saddled us with.
Our brilliant bureaucrats. Reps & Dems through all these years have made reports and calculations, but NO ONE has taken the initiative to FIX the revenue problem. And the Rep governments have been borrowing money from the fund to pay for other things. Mismanagement needs to be corrected.
The Federal Government does not have a revenue problem.
It has a spending problem.
You could give the Federal Government all the wealth in the Milky Way Galaxy and it would be broke again in five years.
Maybe sooner.
A’La USPS.
Because it is always easier to spend other peoples’ money than one’s own. Moreover, they can force the rest of us to pay more and more and we let them.
Herman Cain suggested that we resolve the retirement/investment issue the way the Chileans did, by privatizing it. I’d like to see more about that in the media.
I’d like to hear a lot more from Herman Cain.
I salute Rick Perry for having the cajones to baldly describe the economic and mathematical absurdities of Social Security. I suspect that the furor (and derision) engendered by his use of the “Ponzi Scheme” metaphor is taking place primarily because the description is a little too close for comfort.
A great deal (probably most) of our poulation regards Social Security the way primitive people would view their Volcano God. They don’t understand exactly how it works but they know it is something that you MUST respect and appease. If you stop believing in it then fire and brimstone will automatically rain down on your village and your crops will wither and die. It’s the same with SSI. If you even question it’s economic viability then you are somehow in league with the dark forces that want to destroy your village. The fact that politicians of both parties choose to shamelessly exploit the issue rather than sounding a Churchill-like call for preparedness shows how decadent and lazy our political class has become.
“…you are somehow in league with the dark forces that want to destroy your village”. Is officially a synonym for the word “conservative”.
I wasn’t aware sentences could be synonyms.
Nice try.
So far, conservatives are “know nothings” and out to destroy villages. (I may have missed a few of your “synonyms”)
Did you find this link at Huffpo?
Perry better come up with his plan soon to save SS or he’s toast.
It’s a strange strategy. Perhaps the root of it is he doesn’t want to talk about the 10 times bigger financial problem, which of course is Medicare. Or maybe he thinks he will gain more young voters than lose older voters. Or maybe he has an eye-popping strategy to save it which he will reveal in the near future. But if all he is going to do is call names, then bye bye Rick.
SS insn’t a ponzi scheme, and it isn’t much of a problem either, at least when compared to Medicare, general government spending, labor unions, the welfare state, radical Islam, and marxism…all of which dwarf the minor problems with the SS system. Ponzi schemes are done with criminal intent. I’m problably the most vocal person on PJM calling politicians criminals, which I firmly believe, but their crime isn’t SS, it’s stuffing their own pockets with ungained lucre and foisting marxism on an unsuspecting public. I agree that they have served the public badly on SS by misrepresenting it, and by using the funds for purposes they wern’t meant for, but this one hardly rises to the level of a crime.
Let’s be clear. Obama has added ONE TRILLION ANNUALLY IN NEW SPENDING, and HE’S A STEALTH MARXIST REVOLUTIONARY, and MEDICARE IS 10 TIMES MORE INSOLVENT THAN SS, and RADICAL ISLAM WANTS TO DESTROY WESTERN CULTURE. People who want to embarrass themselves by yelling about the minor issue of SS are fools. That includes Perry if he doesn’t change direction.
Seriously?
SS and Medicare may be different in scale but are not different in kind. Both are collectivist abominations.
Save SS? Eff that.
Get rid of it. Medicare, too.
Your retirement and your healthcare are your responsibility, not mine, and not anybody else’s.
There is the reality based world, and then there is eman.
Did I miss something? Reagan certainly must have shut down Social Security while I wasn’t looking?
Oh wait. Here is what he said in a letter to Congress May 21, 1981:
“–First, this nation must preserve the integrity of the Social Security trust fund and the basic benefit structure that protects older Americans.
–Second, we must hold down the tax burden on the workers who support Social Security.
–Finally, we must eliminate all abuses in the system that can rob the elderly of their rightful legacy.”
That’s your reply? Hiding behind Ronald Reagan?
I’ll be blunt: Reagan was wrong and so are you.
Screaming isn’t an argument.
You’re more emotional on this issue than a high school girl. What a child.
More drivel.
Screaming?
Thou doth protest too much.
The only screaming you hear comes from your own imagination.
“These [Trust Fund] balances are available … only in a bookkeeping sense. … They do not consist of real economic assets … Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.”
If I recall correctly, this fatal flaw captures in a nutshell the myth of Clinton’s balanced budget and budget surplusses. Funny money and creative accounting. Add in the Obama factor, and the funny-money multiplier becomes exponential.
Yes, Social Security et al is the ultimate, mandatory Ponzi scheme. The whole system should be abolished.
What we are seeing and hearing regarding Gov. Perry’s assessment of the present Social Security system has shocked the Democrat establishment and its auxiliary, the left-wing press. They are beside themselves that anyone would have the audacity, even though speaking only the truth, to give such an analysis to that Democrat shrine, Social Security.
Perry risks the alienation of the elderly, most of whom depend upon that S.S. monthly supplement.
There is no doubt that he’ll speak more about S.S being a Ponzi Scheme, and it is hoped he’ll offer a constructive dialogue on what he’d recommend to the Congress to correct that system, it does need a corrective solution.
Perry has the style, the courage, to tackle such a monster that actually no other Republican and certainly no other Democrat, running for presidential office, has had the fortitude to even approach same as a problem…and it is.
It cannot continue at the rate of “payors in” against “takers out.” When it was formulated during FDR’s regime, the numbers of participants made it possible. No one would then call it a “Ponzi Scheme,” but whatever name assigned to the process, it was a first-class “con” job that gave FDR/Democrats a lock on power. Actuarily speaking, it was not, at that time, expected that many would be collecting much past age 65 if they even reached 65. Ponzi Scheme then? Damned straight!
That has changed in a major way, life expectencies today mean that S.S. has a longer (and unintended)payment period. That means, to continue “the scheme, there must be more payors than takers. That ain’t happening.
Perry calls it a Ponzi Scheme because it is.
‘Don’t like that name? Well, call it what you like, even call it Social Security, but its “security” is very fragile as it’s conducted presently. In its present state, it can’t sustain itself, and Perry had the guts to bring that to the forefront where it needs to be.
Have the Democrats even breathed a word about it to save it over their years in power? If they have, they’ve been darned quiet about it.
Rep. Paul Ryan did address it with his remedies and he was vilified for it. His plan would not have affected any American over age 55 years, they would receive benefits as now projected. The Democrats and some gutless Republicans wanted to kill it on arrival and “the people” were screwed once again.
Dear KA
I am so glad to see you come out in support of Rick Perry. And, even more so on this particular point. The question and Gov. Perry’s answer set the stage for Mitt Romney to show his real colors as a Big Government Republican Liberal.
I frankly was astounded by Romney’s response claiming that “10s of millions of Americans have retired on Social Security, Unbelievable.
It was very clear that Perry was the Liberal target of choice last night. It was equally clear that the Governor was anything but the “deer in the headlights”. He gave as well as, if not more, than he got.
I really wish Sarah Palin would let us know her intentions. I really hope it is not for her to take her Tea Party votes and run. What I would like to see is for her to barter her votes for a very senior, highly visible position where she could really benefit the nation. The Attorney General comes to mind. She is more than smart enough to bypass the so called requirement of an LLD for this position. Or, if The then president has the cajones lets dismantle Obama Care, The Departments of Energy, Education, Drug Enforcement, the EPA and the IRS (particularly the 1500 new hires for ObamaCare). ATF needs their butts kicked up between their eyes and a whole new image.
Again a fun read and Right On The Money as usual.
In addition to Paul Samuelson’s comment about the Social Security ponzi scheme, you can add the distinguished name of another Keynesian Nobel laureate, Paul R. Krugman, who wrote in the December 1996/January 1967 issue of Boston Review:
“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).”
everyone knows this, but none of us are supposed to speak it, can’t be upsetting the crack-money addicts.
and that’s just how the Oligarchy likes it.
So, if Washington were to promote this “reduction of payroll tax” to people without the fuzziness, they’d have to say “Congratulations, your current paycheck is about to increase! We’re reducing the amount taken out by FICA! Now go spend the difference on stuff, it is your patriotic duty to spend it. Of course, you and your employer will have paid in less to SS, therefore, your monthly check when you retire will be smaller.”
Here is the deeply cynical part: even if “forced’ to tell it in those bald terms, they would count on the following: “Hey what the hell, SS is not going to be there for me when I retire anyway, or inflation will make my SS check a joke, so who cares about that supposed smaller amount 25 years from now. Just give me more money now.” Which of course is exactly the attitude the Establishment scolds people for taking with regards SS. So they are harnessing the anti-socialist attitude they claim to deny to bolster support for their Keynesian game for keeping the overall leaking ship afloat now.
Is anyone who refuses to admit that the Social Security system as currently implemented is a Ponzi scheme really qualified to be President or even a Congressman?
If you don’t think it is broke, then you will resist fixing it.
Get a medal? For something so ordinary, something we expect from all? This was pedestrian stuff. It is not like others have not said it before. Perry merely labeled it as others have, but offered no solution. Not a “big effin’ deal”. Paul, as one example, says the bald truth all the time. Palin and Bachmann let it all hang out, regularly. Cain and Santorum speak some hard truths. It’s a good field of candidates in this regard. Perry is nothing special, here.
Ms. Shiver seems to be getting on the Perry bandwagon. She used to cheerlead for Romney. Now she extolls such a small virtue of Perry’s. Well, Romney used to be the handsomest guy in the race. Now Perry is, especially with that manly cowboy swagger. And Shiver is female, after all….
I cannot remember the question, but my father’s answer was always, “because people die”.
I always felt this was wrong. Eventually, I realized the more correct answer is because people are born.but even before, it was obvious this idea did not “work out”.
If SS is a PONZI scheme, so is any insurance policy. Home owners insurance, you pay to protect yourself as well as your neighbors. Parts of the North East are underwater from Hurricane flooding, but the folks in Kansas who subscribe to the same insurance company, will help pay for the claims. Car insurance, same deal. Never file a claim drive safely, but your premiums still go up every year because others in the group are habitual offenders. Let’s not forget Term Life Insurance. Pay premiums for 50 years, but if your beneficiaries don’t collect before you turn 70, they get nada.
Someone on this blog mentioned Sen. D. Pat Moynihan. His inquiry into the problems with the SS fund disclosed that the Fund was not a “Lock Box” as intended. The monies were being removed to fund other social programs that were unfunded and payable to those who never contributed to SS in the first place. There’s a room some where in DC full of SS IOU’s that will never be repaid.
Moynihan, implemented a few changes that were supposed to keep SS solvent for the next 75 years, but some how that did not happen. AARP, several years ago, also suggested a few simple changes to the SS program that would have fixed it permanently but that also did not happen.
Corporations and businesses both large and small want out of paying a share of SS for their employee’s. Wall street wants the SS money invested with them. They are lobbying politicians in both parties to put forth the notion that SS is unfixable and it’s really an illegal enterprise.
The texting youth of this country are falling for this fools gold en mass. They say even an Atheist gets religion in a Fox Hole. When the Text-ers turn 65, and find a world where they actually do have to fend for themselves maybe then they just might regret what they called for in 2011. For all of you who are now in thier 20′s and 30′s, “Don’t Blink” 40 years passes that quickly.
@ Robert L
Please do not throw out Moynihan/AARP putative moves that “would have fixed it permanently” without explanation and expect credibility; everyone here knows there is no such thing so your ring-toss rings hollow.
Free market insurance is differs from SSPonzi as follows: 1) voluntary purchase; 2) evaluation of purchase based on financial viability of the company (get a piece of the rock, etc.); 3) re-insurance means the spreading of risk in case of a major disaster to the company.
In a pale, sick echo of re-insurance, the “spreading of risk” under SS is: an involuntary titanic burden to the next generations; they won’t be born with Original Sin, just Original Debt.
Life on life’s terms: there is no perfect miracle guarantee. Collectivizing the nation under the compulsory insanity of SS in lieu of citizens facing the finite truth is tyranny.
Good answer, John. Insurance is taking a known loss, the premium, to insure against a potential loss, the thing insured. If there is no loss then the premium is gone to pay the insurance for underwriting the monetary risk involved. That monetary risk is all we can insure against. No problem that I can see. If I do not insure then if I take a loss it is my loss in total. If I do not take that loss I still have my premium. There is no law that says I must have insurance. Liability is another scam or, at best, semi-scam.
If SS is insurance it is insurance against being broke in my old age but does it fulfill that promise? Is it the best available system? Indications are that it is not the best system but that there is an older and better system that is easy to ignore. It was never enforced by law but compassion. The law told us what we needed to do for it to work but did not force us to do it that way.
Back in the late forties, early fifties,our favorite filling station, supplied by a small independent refinery, had a wall plaque stating, “It is our responsibility to prosper under conditions as we find them.”
Social Security has not nor cannot change that. We managed for ages before Social Security and we can manage without Social Security now. However we have a segment of our population trapped by
Social Security and we need to honor our commitment to them. That does not justify SS as it exists now, existed in the past or will exist in the future.
As has been mentioned, SS had static funds crying for investment. As long as those funds were in my hands they got invested. When the government absconded with them they became available for Social Engineering to be repaid by the taxpayer at a later date. I see nothing that has changed this so we were taxed twice for the same purpose.
Social security. You pay for 40 years of working and you have accumulated no real wealth and far less return on your money.
Take a one time deposit into a new born child’s account of $10,000, in an annuity that pays 7%, and the result at age 65 is more money in retirement and more wealth than the 40 years of payments.
So the issue should be how to transition to this type of program, allowing for some funds for those that need help before retirement tnrough disability or other problems.
But that would really be thinking out fo the box, and congressmen prefer the ponzi scheme of using tax money and bribes to dole out benefits.