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The biggest Ponzi Scheme ever created is still going - the left regards its creator as a hero. In fact, Obambi is about to emulate his most disastrous mistakes.

FDR

The biggest Ponzi Scheme perpetrated in America is known as "Social Security".

Reading this thread, of course FDR is the first thing that came to my mind. Intended to remark similarly to your post, but you’ve beat me to it.
The entire US government has become a giant Ponzi scheme, basically beginning with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and set up on a downhill snowballing ride by FDR in 1933.
Two or three generations now, depending on how you define the term, have been raised with the notion of the “Free Lunch”. I am constantly amazed at the ignorance of the majority of those I come in contact with who are in their 20’s or 30’s. They sense something is terribly wrong with US economic policy, but brainwashing in public schools and public/private colleges has them cheering on further pursuit of failed policies as the answer.
I see one possible benefit to the election of President Barry Soetoro, it would be the Mother of All Ironies if the 70 some years of accrued social welfare schemes blow up on his watch. It has to blow up sooner or later and by God, I hope it’s sooner rather than later, while I’m still relatively young enough (55) to handle the social unrest that’s going to accompany it.

The defining characteristic of a Ponzi scheme is that any real investments it may make are purely window dressing, and the scheme pays out attractive-seeming "yield" by tapping into the capital. This can be sustained until the supply of new ~~investors~~ suckers no longer is sufficient to outrun the "yield" payout.
The "Social Security Trust Fund" is precisely the sort of window dressing "investment" characteristic of a Ponzi scheme; its "investments" are IOUs which the government has written to itself. You can write an IOU for a million dollars yourself - you just can't afford to let anyone else have it. And so it is with the "safe government bonds" in the SSTF. When the time comes when the cash flow of Social Security goes negative and the Social Security Administration attempts to use the bonds in the SSTF, all it will do is transfer the cash flow crunch to the Treasury, which not only doesn't have surplus in its budget but is since the Johnson Administration accustomed to counting the Social Security cash flow surplus in its "balanced" budget.
IOW, by its nature the SSTF is not an investment which can protect our grandchildren from the a crushing tax burden implied by the demographics of our nation and the silver-tongued promises of the Democrats to those who depend on Social Security. Rather, the SSTF is merely a record of "capital" which supposedly has been invested but actually has been dissipated by the government.

Except SS started with plenty of forced investors donating to the scheme. Since it was opposite of a Ponzi it was destined to fail. The only way it can last is if the government forces more people into it by bringing in illegal aliens and forcing parents to donate more for each child. And don’t think that ain’t comin’.

Merry Christmas