tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16816866.post7717818492980325711..comments2024-02-29T02:10:56.878-08:00Comments on J O S H U A P U N D I T: Is Social Security 'A Ponzi Scheme'?Freedom Fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13649470110087808596noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16816866.post-78969938859796862222011-09-13T03:43:53.623-07:002011-09-13T03:43:53.623-07:00To LouieLouie :
Yes,COLAs are the adjustments whi...To LouieLouie :<br /><br />Yes,COLAs are the adjustments which are effected in response to the deliberately corrupted inflation-adjustment schemes whereto I was referring. I was trying to eschew some of the technical argot & jargon whereto I am admittedly prone. <br /><br />The site I mentioned en passant, & have just re-discovered yesterday morning, is called www dot shadowstats dot com. There is a precis titled ' Consumer Price Index / October 1st 2004 / Government Economic Reports : Things You've Suspected But Were Afraid To Ask ! ' ( www dot shadowstats dot com/article/consumer_price_index ) which summarises this intelligibly & brilliantly & terrifyingly. No maths required for comprehension. I'm rubbish at maths, ( unlike my late father, my late mother, & my late daughter -- it skipped me ! ), but I had no difficulty whatsoever following the succinct analysis. Also recommended : ' Alternate Inflation Charts ' ( www dot shadowstats dot com/alternate_data/inflation-charts ). If you like horror films, there is the new, but very lengthy, ' Hyperinflation Special Report ( 2011 ) / March 15 2011 [ Ides Of March, no less ! ] / Special Commentary Number 357 ' which created a nice case of insomnia for me last night. ( www dot shadowstats dot com/article/hyperinflation-special-report-2011#_Toc287944634 ) I beg Joshuapundit's indulgence for all these off-site refs. I 1st stumbled across that site about 3 years ago but subsequently forgot about it till a passing reference at Dick Morris' site ( another grateful acknowledgement ) reminded me about it. It is chock-full of, or, ? , chock-a-block with nutritious economic info in easily digestible form. Never forget the maxim of the old indienne : scientia potestas est : knowledge is power. Learn the tricks & ticks of the trade of the crooks & denizens of DC-land. <br /><br />To Zachriel :<br /><br />It is much, much too late to simply ' increas[e] the retirement age slowly over time ' . I proposed that in the 1970s, but now you would have to drastically increase the collection age, for the sheer quantity, the sheer numbers, of baby boomers is too great. You can't have 3 social-security recipients for every 1 taxpayer. That is why I'm begging any of you post-1959ers to wake up, for you are not yet in the powerful grey-haired geriatric age cohort which the politicians are afraid of, & you might see your social-security age raised to the 70s !<br /><br /> If either of you disagree with me, please respond swiftly & quickly, for I have volunteered to leave again on Fri in order to fill in for an ill person at another location for a business of mine ( Halloween Is coming up & it's important to be at full strength ! )<br /><br />--dragon/dinosaurAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16816866.post-60866578211431834152011-09-12T13:21:49.016-07:002011-09-12T13:21:49.016-07:00while i believe the legal term for social security...while i believe the legal term for social security is "compact between the generations", i have always considered it a ponzi scheme.<br />in reading about it, i stumbled across a very interesting person.<br />if you want to find out when social security should have set off bells and whistles, read about ida mae fuller. ms. fuller was the first recipient of social security benefits. i'm sure my numbers are not correct but i believe she paid in something like $56 to the system. by the time she passed in the mid '60s, she had withdrawn over $22K dollars. quite the investment.louielouienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16816866.post-89369291235719132802011-09-12T11:43:00.805-07:002011-09-12T11:43:00.805-07:00d/d,
in your last paragraph, i believe you are ref...d/d,<br />in your last paragraph, i believe you are refering to "cost of living adjustments" (COLA).<br />i don't believe your statement of under-calculating food/fuel is accurate.<br />a more accurate statement is that these items have been "deleted" when calculating COLA.<br />that is why hussein was able to state that the inflation rate, which is the link to calculating COLA, is only 1.57%.<br />i don't have the technical expertise to explain it, but that is how the economy is going to be monetized to "rob" from these 60, 70, & 80 year olds without them ever knowing it. their pension checks don't go up, but like you say, the cost of food/fuel does/is going up. significantly. the elderly are simply going to lose purchasing power.louielouienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16816866.post-53157472164292326082011-09-12T04:32:36.037-07:002011-09-12T04:32:36.037-07:00"In contrast to a Ponzi scheme, dependent upo..."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."<br />http://www.ssa.gov/history/ponzi.htm<br /><br />A Ponzi scheme can never be made perpetually solvent. There are a number of valid proposals to make Social Security perpetually solvent, including increasing the retirement age slowly over time, or with an increase in the payroll tax.Zachrielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11268229653808829377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16816866.post-90535788200047436812011-09-11T22:18:15.354-07:002011-09-11T22:18:15.354-07:00In the 1970s, I occasionally wrote letters to seve...In the 1970s, I occasionally wrote letters to several newspapers, & I employed that very term, ' Ponzi Scheme ' , when discussing this issue. Joshuapundit has employed this term also ; the Texas gov has employed this term also. Most people have known for a very long time that the scheme is unsustainable. But the earliest baby-boomer turned 60 on 1 Jan 2006, & no one in DC-la-la Land wishes to tread on the toes of people in their 60s, 70s, & 80s, for there is where true electoral power, influence, PAC donations, & Senate & House chairmanships lie. You have to tread on eggs there.<br /><br />For you post-Baby-Boomers, ie, post-1959 US persons, don't expect to live to collect anything in return for your taxes. Congress has already ' pulled some fast ones ', eg, if you were born on 31 Dec 1959, you are allowed to collect on a certain date ; however, if you are born on 1 Jan 1960, you must add 2 ( two ) years plus a day before you are permitted to collect. ( If memory serves me, they have long since pulled all the orphan & blindness benefits which were once integral to the system. I believe the programme was originally intended & devised to be much more than a pure retirement scheme. Please correct me if I'm wrong, for I am no expert on this historical topic & matter & these details. ) They inevitably will revisit the age issue & will attack some of the access of perhaps, maybe, even late baby-boomers of the late 1950s.<br /><br />They have also robbed current beneficiaries by employing a deliberately corrupted inflation-adjustment scheme whereby food & fuel costs have been deliberately under-calculated & new technical marvels like i-pods & gigantic, circus-sized television sets have been deliberately over-calculated ( because, after all, as the Feds see it, how many elderly people actually eat anymore ? , or fuel their cars with petrol anymore ? There is a site whose name I've forgotten, but I think that it is called shadow stats, or close to that, which has calculated that since the inception of this ' new math ' , in 1978, most of the real inflation has been ignored ). <br /><br />--dragon/dinosaurAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com