On Mon, 05 Dec 2016 15:10:10 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 05 Dec 2016 13:56:05 +0000, Stormin' Norman
wrote:

Social Security *is* a Ponzi scheme by any reasonable definition of the term.

Actually, the most significant difference is that Ponzi Schemes are
illegal and Social Security is legal.


That is simply an arbitrary decision made by the government that is
running the Ponzi. It is clear the main elements of a Ponzi are
present.
1. It was designed as a pyramid with a large of new investors paying a
fairly small number of payees.
2. The operator of the scheme siphoned off as much of the excess
inventors money as they could and still give a reasonable amount of
money to the original investors.
3. There is no real "investment" (the government loaning itself money
is not investing, no matter what bogus they promise to pay
themselves.)
4 and the most important, when the base of the pyramid can not support
the number of payees who expect to get their money out, the scheme
fails.

We, the people, through our representatives have approved of
everything the government is doing and has done with social security.

We are the government, the government is us. So many people lose
sight of this simple and all important fact when they are unhappy
about something and don't want to take any responsibility for either
the problem or the solution.