Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The ‘Ponzi' Sound Bite (Thomas Sowell)
Creators Syndicate ^ | September 20, 2011 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 09/19/2011 2:41:36 PM PDT by jazusamo

Many in the media and in politics have gone ballistic over the fact that Texas Governor Rick Perry called Social Security "a Ponzi scheme."

Although many act shocked, shocked, as if Rick Perry had said something unthinkable, Governor Perry is not even among the first thousand people to call Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Not only conservatives, but even some liberals, have been calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme for decades.

Moreover, neither the media nor the politicians who are carrying on over the use of the words "Ponzi scheme" show the slightest interest in any hard facts that would tell us whether Social Security is or is not a Ponzi scheme. It is a "gotcha" moment, and that is apparently what some people live for.

What makes this nonsense become fraud is the insinuation that calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme means advocating that people who are depending on Social Security be abandoned and left with nothing to live on in their retirement years. That is the big scare — and the big lie.

People getting Social Security checks are going to keep on getting those checks. Nobody has advocated anything else, or would dare to cut off a financial lifeline for millions of people.

What is at issue is the particular mechanism through which people can be provided for in their retirement years. Some politicians loudly proclaim that they want to "save Social Security." But programs exist for people — and it is the people who should be saved.

Whether or not the checks that retirees continue to get say "Social Security" is beside the point. The point is that they keep on getting the money they need to live on, whether that money comes from a different institution or from Social Security.

The fundamental problem of Social Security is that the irresponsible way its finances are set up, and the changing demographics of the country, mean that there is simply not going to be enough money in its trust fund to pay today's young people what they are legally entitled to, when time comes for them to retire.

The money is just not there, some of it having been spent for unrelated purposes. Making up a growing shortfall, as baby boomers stop paying into the system as they retire, and start drawing money out of the system, would mean ever-increasing burdens on the taxpayers that the taxpayers are unlikely to put up with.

Social Security worked fine when the small generation from the 1930s received pensions from the money being paid in by the larger and more prosperous "baby boom" generation that followed. It worked fine when the average life expectancy of the first generation was not long enough for most of them to collect Social Security checks for more than a few years — if at all.

Declining birth rates and greatly increasing lifespans have created havoc with Social Security's finances, which are based on having the first generation's pensions paid with money collected from the second generation — and the second generation's pensions paid by the next generation, etc.

Any private financial scheme set up in a similar way would be illegal. That is why Charles Ponzi went to prison.

The politically expedient way of dealing with the situation is to "save Social Security" with short-term fixes that kick the ever-growing shortfall down the road for some later Congress to deal with — or to be overwhelmed by, when voters refuse to pay ruinous tax increases to keep the system going.

Another way to deal with the problem is to give younger workers the option to set up privately-owned retirement accounts instead. These accounts would be beyond the reach of politicians, and based on each generation setting aside money for its own retirement. Studies have shown that private accounts would pay retirees far better than Social Security.

Meanwhile, people currently depending on Social Security can continue to get what they were promised, even if that requires taxpayer subsidies for the current generation of retirees — as distinguished from subsidizing unending generations to come.

These are the kinds of options that need serious discussions, instead of "gotcha" sound bites. Sound bites are usually not very sound, and they are an irresponsible way to discuss serious issues.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: pansyscam; socialsecurity; sowell; thomassowell
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-43 next last
To: reaganaut1

Economically the best thing we could do right now is simply end Social Security. I say that as a current recipient with no other sort of pension. I wouldn’t like it but I would get by. Alternatively and a little more palatably to the generally less economically educated people and the short sighted ones I say cut off from the system in one action everyone who has not yet reached his 50th birthday. Set up something like the Peruvian system then.


21 posted on 09/19/2011 3:48:44 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's "ERomney cannot get enough socialist leaning "independents" conomics In One Lesson.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: arthurus

Sowell was, IIRC, offered Treasury under Reagan and turned it down due to medical reasons (hypertension). Apropos of nothing in particular, did you know he was a Marine Corps pistol instructor? BTT.


22 posted on 09/19/2011 3:49:13 PM PDT by Billthedrill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: reaganaut1
Why shouldn't current recipients bear some of the pain?

I'll answer that one- because current recipients can no longer alter their own circumstances. Younger people can make investment/retirement decisions that will change their circumstances. Much younger people can work at strengthening their families so that families become part of the old age support system as they once were.

23 posted on 09/19/2011 3:53:58 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's "ERomney cannot get enough socialist leaning "independents" conomics In One Lesson.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

Comment #24 Removed by Moderator

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Where you choose to copy, paste and falsely attribute videos and published quotes is your problem. Just don’t do it here. Thanks.


25 posted on 09/19/2011 4:07:42 PM PDT by Admin Moderator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: jazusamo

If I were seeking elective office (or had any influence whatsoever), the first step I’d take is to recalibrate qualifications for SSI by changing the ADA. As it stands, all one has to do is affirm s/he is a drug addict or practicing alcoholic and, voila! Here come the SSI checks. No questions asked. They are considered ‘disabled.’

I would rewrite SSI qualifications so that the truly disabled continue to receive benefits. Those who qualified under the ADA designation for alcoholism and/or drug addiction would be given, say, 2 years, of continued benefit with a mandatory (are I say?) rehab program. If they can’t sober up in 2 years, they’re just out of luck or at least out of SSI payments.


26 posted on 09/19/2011 4:27:31 PM PDT by EDINVA ( Jimmy McMillan '12: because RENT'S, TOO DAMN HIGH)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Admin Moderator
I've been LOOKING and I found it! [I'm sorry I didn't get it before -- didn't understand the difference]

VIDEO at Fox Palin: 'I'm Not the Conventional, Status Quo Politician ... the Last Thing I Worry About Is the Mainstream Media'

[excerpt] VAN SUSTEREN: You're right. It was about Medicare. You're right. Ryan talks about Medicare.

PALIN: But with Social Security, too, if you have more recipients than you have payers into the system, it's like a Ponzi scheme that's going to be upside down in no time at all! We're going to be underwater with Social Security. So all of this has to be reformed.

President Obama is dead wrong to try to -- he's deceiving the public and making it sound like we just can go along the way that we've been going and still have at the end of the day somebody's retirement years that they're going to able to receive what it is they paid into the system. We're going belly-up, so President Obama is wrong!

And if he says, and he will say, Oh, we're working on reform, we're talking about reform in our budget -- bull! The Democrat Party hasn't even produced a budget again this year. They have not produced the reform packages that they have promised. He is deceiving the public! [excerpt] Page 2: text

27 posted on 09/19/2011 4:28:03 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: arthurus

Good point - I was being hyperbolic and it is a bit more nuanced than that. I think we ultimately are on the same page - Sowell wouldn’t have sought the office and has no executive experience. I’d take him (and about a hundred million others) over Obama given the nightmare that we are living and that he has common sense that seems to be utterly lacking in the current “brain trust” at the Executive Office level.


28 posted on 09/19/2011 4:30:55 PM PDT by rockvillem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: EDINVA

I have to agree with you, the disability thing is out of control. I might go so far as to limit benefits for drug or alcohol addiction to a year with a rehab program.


29 posted on 09/19/2011 4:34:58 PM PDT by jazusamo (His [Obama's] political base---the young, the left and the thoughtless: Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Congrats, I knew you could do it. Thanks.


30 posted on 09/19/2011 4:40:56 PM PDT by Admin Moderator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: jazusamo

I was having a liberal moment! It has to go, period.


31 posted on 09/19/2011 4:41:07 PM PDT by EDINVA ( Jimmy McMillan '12: because RENT'S, TOO DAMN HIGH)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: jazusamo

A voice of reason in every “crisis” or fiasco. I hope he lives to 120!


32 posted on 09/19/2011 5:22:40 PM PDT by Tax-chick (I welcome our new reptilian overlords. They are so quiet!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: arthurus

Chile, not Peru.


33 posted on 09/19/2011 5:24:56 PM PDT by xone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: xone
Chile, not Peru.

Of course. I have Peru on the brain right now. My least daughter living in Lima with her husband teaching English. She is pregnant and kind of a refugee from American treatment of the condition. They are not anxious to come back so I will probably have to go there to visit my grandchild later.

34 posted on 09/19/2011 5:33:16 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's "ERo,ney cannot get enough socialist leaning "independents" conomics In One Lesson.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

I’ve been thinking “Arthur Ponzirelli” ever since this whole kerfuffle started about Perry calling SS what it is.


35 posted on 09/19/2011 5:37:10 PM PDT by jurroppi1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: rockvillem
Please excuse.
I meant Chilean, not Peruvian. I have Peru on the brain right now. My daughter is in Lima with her husband teaching English.She just informed me she is pregnant and they are not anxious to come back so I will probably have to go there to visit my grandchild.
36 posted on 09/19/2011 5:39:01 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's "ERo,ney cannot get enough socialist leaning "independents" conomics In One Lesson.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: jazusamo

Sowell is always the voice of reason and he’s entirely right about this.

My 40s something son said that he’d LOVE to have a private account that wouldn’t give his money to other people. And, frankly, I would have loved that choice, too!

Perry is getting a bad rap because he’s right and that scares the living h*** out of the others running against...and zero’s minions!


37 posted on 09/19/2011 6:38:40 PM PDT by luvie (Obama is E V I L!!! RUN, SARAH---RUN!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing

Thanks for the inspiration for a new tagline. :)


38 posted on 09/19/2011 6:47:26 PM PDT by luvie (zero IS a Fonzi Scheme!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: LUV W

I fully agree and though Palin is my first choice if she runs I think Perry is getting a really bad rap on this.


39 posted on 09/19/2011 7:33:07 PM PDT by jazusamo (His [Obama's] political base---the young, the left and the thoughtless: Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: jazusamo

Jaz, I hope you didn’t mind my post #8, I couldn’t resist :)


40 posted on 09/19/2011 8:10:54 PM PDT by smoothsailing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-43 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson