Rick Perry says Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" and a "monstrous lie" (Perry speaks the truth)

cbs ^ | 8/29/2011 | Corbett B. Daly

[tobyhill]

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry continued his attack on Social Security over the weekend, calling it a "Ponzi scheme" and a "monstrous lie" to younger Americans who should not expect to get back their contributions upon retirement.

"It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie," Perry said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

"It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them," Perry told a crowd a The Vine Coffeehouse in Ottumwa, Iowa.

[rolling_stone]

So you believe Timothy Geitner and Kathleen Sebelius? ROFLMAO...

[Graneros]

Very good. Doesn’t matter if you love or hate Perry those are 3 good solid points you make there. In just 3 very concise sentences, I might add.

Every Republican Candidate should understand and agree with your first sentence. Then should heed the advice of your last 2 sentences.

[Tublecane]

“SS takes a fraction of all paychecks, and distributes the money in proportion to how much the retirees had paid to SS during their work lives”

The program, and government as a whole, has much gained by the people’s mystical belief in the connection between those two things—payments and benefits—being somehow real. But it’s nothing more than a mirage. By the time you receive the benefits your money is long gone. And besides that, many, many people get more than what they put in.

[KeyLargo]

I don’t have a ping list.

Anyway, I’m an early boomer and I get aggravated when I see so many of my generation that have the attitude that they want their government cheese and ‘F’ the grandchildren.

[In Maryland]

"Go back to the beginnings of SS. NO ONE was suppose to collect. Our lifespan was lower than 65 back then.

I'm sorry, but you are incorrect. Life expentancy AT BIRTH was arround 66 years in 1937. But that number is very deceptive, because of higher infant mortality. The life expectancy of someone reaching 60 was about 11 years. So it was known all along that people would collect. And in the beginning, there was one lump sum payment when you retired - monthly benefits came a few years later.

But the increase in life-expectancy is certainly a factor in the insolvency of Social Security. The only way to get around the problem is to limit benefits and allow most of a worker's contribution to go into a private account.

The advantage of a private account is not only that politicians (theoretically) can't spend it, but it can be invested more efficiently. An investment in the stock market, over time, yields about a 5% real return (return above inflation); the government bonds SSA is forced to invest in historically have a real return of 2%. Over 40 years it makes a BIG difference.

[In Maryland]

"Once the birth rate started to fall, AND life expectancy ROSE, it was doomed to fail sooner or later."

And why did the birth rate fall? It couldn't have anything to do with the 50 million aborted babies, could it?

[JudgemAll]

It’s worse than a ponzi scheme, it is a scheme to divide the nation between working tax payers and people expecting those tax payers to make up for the fraud. It is a government hostaging crisis.

Perry is very mellow about it.

[FromTheSidelines]

Real simple:

1. Are there more people working today than 20 years ago?

2. Are they earning higher average wages than 20 years ago?

3. Are more dollars flowing in to the Social Security system than 20 years ago?

If the answer to those 3 questions is “yes”, then the increase in imports is immaterial to the fact that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

[JudgemAll]

As in the final solution? Maddoff screwed a bunch of Jewish institutions, by the way.

Again, it’s worse than a ponzi scheme, it is a scheme to divide the nation between working tax payers and people expecting those tax payers to make up for the fraud. It is a government hostaging crisis.

Perry is very mellow about it.

[FromTheSidelines]

However, how many are actually talking about the problem? That’s the issue... If Perry is willing to talk about it as a candidate, then he’d probably be willing to address it as President.

I don’t know of any other Presidential candidate talking about the fundamental Ponzi-scheme nature of Social Security, do you? Knowing about it and talking about it are two different things.

[JudgemAll]

Not only they keep stealing it, but once they will know people are willing to be hostaged by it (with the help of donors who will want the money from taxpayers), the government will spend it all and laugh at us.

It’s how they started screwing the jews and then it went all the way to Aushwitch to pay for whatever, until the next segment of the population with money was targeted.

Zero is after the jews for their money, mark my words.

[JudgemAll]

The truth now will hurt less when down the line the “that’s racist” group will attack jews with money and others with money for their money in order to satisfy social security recipients or what not hostage policy they have in mind that others are not into.

The country is getting old by the sheer finance catastrophy and loss of innocence.

Not only they keep stealing it, but once they will know people are willing to be hostaged by it (with the help of donors who will want the money from taxpayers), the government will spend it all and laugh at us.

It’s how they started screwing the jews and then it went all the way to Aushwitch to pay for whatever, until the next segment of the population with money was targeted.

Zero is after the jews for their money, mark my words.

[FromTheSidelines]

You mean the system that pays winos and druggies as “disabled persons”? The average street wino who is out there panhandling is also collecting a check for his “disability,” which would be more than enough to get him a decent room and other things (I believe disability pays more than retirement).

SS covers so many things that it was never meant to cover. And the people who are being blamed are the next generation of retirees, the Boomers, who have paid heavily into this system all of their lives.

I’m self-employed and I pay 16+% of my income. You employed folks pay 8+% and your employer pays the rest. We should be able to collect something on this.

Perry has got to make it clear that he is not blaming the recipients, but the system. Even Chile has a system where they invest it all, don’t spend it on other things, and give retirees a one time payout of around $200,000 and then an income of about $3,000 per month (converted to what would be equivalent here in the US).

But SS in the US has been the private slush fund of anybody who wanted to buy a few votes or make himself look “progressive,” and that’s why it’s going broke.

[Sacajaweau]

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html

[Sacajaweau]

Monthly benefits started 3 years later...1940. The first recipient lived to 100 and collected almost $23,000.

[Parmy]

But remember, unlike most of the rest of the programs that the government provides, SS, Medicare, etc. have manditory payroll deduction. I have been paying into the system with ever-increasing deductions from my paycheck since 1969 to the present.

If there needs to be cuts, try the Department of ED., HUD, and others that are a direct drain on the budget and which don't contribute anything to the budget.

[Soothesayer9]

No mention of 401k accounts yet, and I suspect the Dems will confiscate them in the dead of night for “the public good”, with worthless IOUs issued thereafter.

[NVDave]

1. The SSA calls their purchase of government securities an “investment” when it is merely a transfer of money from the payroll taxes to the general fund whenever the Congress runs a budget deficit. When there is a deficit, there is US Treasury debt available to purchase, and the SSA calls this their “investment” of SS funds:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/investheld.html

2. Social Security is a fraud on it’s face. They’re claiming that people who pay into the system “will” (not may, but “will” upon reaching the age of eligibility) get benefits which they are computing and promulgating even now in the yearly SSA circulars mailed to each person who has paid into SS.

For people under the age of, oh, 50, I’ve got some news: Those numbers simply will not come true. If the economy continues down the path we’re on, that might turn out to be “under 55.”

Promising people something in the future which you know you don’t have the power to deliver... That’s fraud.

Fraud requires five elements:

1. Injury to the victim. In this case, money was taken from people, and these people were told that the government would provide for a stream of retirement income for them when they met an age which has been used for retirement planning for decades. If these people had been told the truth, they could have made other plans, or invested their money in real investments.

2. Reliance by the victim on the statement. I think we agree that there are a whole lot of people who are thinking that SS will be there who believe this only because they’re mathematically ignorant. I’m not, and I haven’t ever been this gullible... because we EE’s have learned far more math than most people know even exists. Social Security is mathematically provable to be unsustainable, and this was seen as far back as the 1980’s.

3. A false statement of material fact. The politicians who hawked SS for decades have known that these problems were coming down the pike... as far back as the late 70’s to early 80’s. Greenspan part of the “commission” that “fixed” SS back then... and even back then, those of us who knew some math knew that their assumptions were for the gullible. At best, when they said they ‘fixed’ SS back then, they knew it would last through only the WWII generation. The statements of material fact which are and have been provably false are those that this system is sustainable when we’ve known forever that the demographic bulge of the Baby Boomers would break the system unless the retirement age was raised radically, the system was means-tested (to eliminate claimants) or we had a huge influx of new payees into the system.

The political and chattering classes have chosen the third option, allowing in rampant immigration in attempts to prop up the system with new payees. Trouble is, even rampant immigration cannot pay out the stream of claims, as we can see in the recent data:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/qop.html

4. Knowledge on part of those committing the fraud that their statements were untrue.

The CBO, as well as the SSA trustees, have been warning of problems for years. The politicians hawking SS as a retirement scheme have known for years that this day would come.

5. Lastly, proving fraud requires that it be shown that there was intent to deceive the victim. That’s also obvious on it’s face. The Democrats have been peddling the lie that everything was fine in Social Security for years, when they knew there was a problem.

As to using funds for political personal expenses or kickbacks of direct cash to the politicians: That’s not required to show fraud or a ponzi scheme. The personal benefit for the politicians has been to spend money in excess of tax revenues (on all manner of things, including pork barrel legislation and earmarks) and enable them to be re-elected. That’s benefit enough, IMO. There is no need to show claims of “high returns” (in fact, Madoff didn’t make claims of high returns and he operated the largest private sector ponzi scheme out there... he was nicknamed “The Jewish T-bill”).

Social Security was not developed by “smart people.” If you think that, then you must also think that such schemes as the Agricultural Adjustment Act were also “smart.” That’s where FDR’s people came around and shot cattle, pigs and horses, threw them in a ditch, plowed under 100’s of thousands of acres of crops... while people were going hungry in order to prop up ag commodity prices so farmers could make their mortgage payments to prop up banks.

AAA was found unconstitutional and after that, FDR threatened to pack the court, after which the SCOTUS rolled over on Social Security litigation.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/court.html

You ought to spend some more time reading up on Social Security. The facts are out there, and as I’ve shown you, on the SSA’s own web site.

Here’s a URL to a case which I think you should also read, Flemming v. Nestor, in which the SCOTUS makes clear in 1960 that Congress can change the benefits someone receives. You cannot count on OADI being there, because Congress has the power to eliminate it or do anything to the benefit. It is merely “social insurance.” It is not, however, sold to the public as mere “insurance” - people believe that if they’ve paid in “X” amount over “Y” years, that they will get a benefit that is foretold to them in the SSA circulars that are mailed out every year. That simply is not true.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5373695872604515216&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

[Soothesayer9]

"Zero is after the jews for their money, mark my words."

And they will gladly give it to him, as they have done so many times

[ex-snook]

If the answer to those 3 questions is “yes”, then the increase in imports is immaterial to the fact that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

---

C’mon man. You should have added a 4th Q for Yes - ‘did Irene happen’. There is no SS tax on products that used to be made here and now are exported. They are not paying into the SS system. Put those 10% unemployed back working and paying SS together with their employers then no problem. 25 million taxpayers would help solve SS shortfall [plus removing all the non-retirement provisions]