if you like your social security.....

[bgytr]

Can you keep it? ...tough shit. You ain't gonna get it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421790/social-security-bankruptcy-statement-baby-boomers

 

[zzrider]

No way. A Ponzi scheme collapsing? Shocking!

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Social Security has been about to collapse any second now, we are just about out of oil, and everyone should hoard gold............standard advice since I learned to read

 

[mikewof]

In other news, the USSR continues talks with President Carter for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, it seems that parachute pants are no longer in fashion, and some asshole on a DARPA grant invented something he calls "The Internet."

 

[Saorsa]

Yes, I like my social security.

Yours, not so much.

 

[Remodel]

And in other news, Geralissimo Fransico Franco is still dead.

 

[Edith Bicknell]

im sure with all of those illegal aliens contributing to social security, it will remain solvent

 

[tuk tuk Joe]

Nevermind the unborn fetal tissue will pay... (Unless of course it's body parts are sold to the highest bidder first)..

 

[Rum Runner]

I believe Al Gore who said that Social Security is in a box somewhere for me. Now where did I leave that box?

 

[Hard On The Wind]

Please explain this:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

 

[Edith Bicknell]

Please explain this:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

We are going to insist you try reading the article one more time, slowly, before we explain it to you.

 

[Dog]

Please explain this:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

There is no social security trust fund. The money has been spent and that $2.7 trillion positive balance is an IOU we wrote to ourselves.

 

[Saorsa]

Please explain this:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

Where does the money come from when they present the 'special' SS bonds for redemption?

 

[zzrider]

Please explain this:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

You can't possibly be this ignorant, can you?

 

[Olsonist]

ZZ, SS is not a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. -- Wikipedia.

SS is not promising new investors profits of any sort, let alone profits higher than other investments. SS is insurance and insurance spreads+dilutes risk.

In related news, bank accounts are not a Ponzi scheme. IRAs are similarly not Ponzi schemes.

 

[tuk tuk Joe]

Please explain this:http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

You can't possibly be this ignorant, can you?

Obviously he is this fucking ignorant..

 

[zzrider]

Please explain this:http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

You can't possibly be this ignorant, can you?

Obviously he is this fucking ignorant..

Clearly, so is Olsonist.

JFC. We've been over this countless times, yet obviously some STILL believe that there is something other than literally worthless IOUs - not investments or actual money - in the SS "trust fund".

Wow.... just, wow.

 

[mikewof]

Please explain this:http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

The social security trust fund has a positive balance of 2.7 trillion dollars. Their positive balance has been increasing throughout the Obama years. Hardly a Ponzi scheme.

You can't possibly be this ignorant, can you?

Obviously he is this fucking ignorant..

Clearly, so is Olsonist.

JFC. We've been over this countless times, yet obviously some STILL believe that there is something other than literally worthless IOUs - not investments or actual money - in the SS "trust fund".

Wow.... just, wow.

Wait a second, where is there any "actual money" in any part of our economy? All those greenbacks are IOUs too, no longer fixed to anything other than the value of our economy itself.

By your definition, the only "actual money" is something with inherent value, like the value of a jar of nickles that I could potentially melt down to make nails, or the value of of hundred dollar bills that are shredded and used as absorbent material in a hog pen, or the value of gold coins that are melted down and used to make conducting wire.

Our entire economy is based on the number of IOUs that we issue, and the value of our economy that backs those IOUs. I don't see any reason why one set of IOUs is any more "worthless" than any other set of IOUs, or even the green President IOUs that you slip into the stripper's g-strings. Our economy is built on IOUs, deal with it.

 

[zzrider]

Mike : creative evasion. I've yet to see anyone attempt to conflate the unmarketable treasury IOUs in the SS "trust fund" with actual US currency in quite that way.

Let me illustrate why it's not the same thing, with a question: what happens when SS actually needs to pay benefits out of that trust fund?

Furthermore, your evasion doesn't even address the reality of SS as a Ponzi, as defined above.

When the .gov collects SS taxes, those funds are immediately put in the general fund and SPENT by the Treasury with some if it going to current benefit payments. (Treasury then writes an IOU to the SSA so long as contributions > outgoing benefits).

So, present benefits are paid by present contributions, NOT from principal & interest of prior invested funds (which were spent long ago). This is the functional definition of a Ponzi! The fact that there is no actual investment income or profit doesn't mean it isn't a Ponzi, it just means it's a really lousy Ponzi.

You may be OK with the fact that our economy is based entirely upon financial lies; I am not. I can "deal with it", but that doesn't mean I'm not going to call it what it is.