I think you can even use Greece as an example. Where the social security net was loosen enough to allow people to ID themselves as blind and get early retirement...no one said much and it was allowed. You have thousands of Greeks who are legally identified as blind, own cars, and regularly drive....which ought to be impossible unless the blindess was a fraud. We’ve taken social security and done the same thing.
Where I grew up as a kid....there’s a mid-40’s guy who spent two years with some effort to get himself signed off as disabled. They finally approved the guy’s paperwork at social security, and I’d take a guess that he pulls in around $1,100 a month. The guy does drywall on the side and gets paid in cash for his effort. People look at this and just shake their heads. I’d take a guess that across the US....we probably have a quarter-million people on fake disability.
In the end, you have to fill that social security pot as quickly as possible because someone is emptying the pot as quickly as possible. At some junction one day....the pot will be empty, and then what?
When the ponzi scheme begins to crack, then they will use the great inflation to balance the books just like they always have. Remember the 70's when we went off the gold standard and moved to the petrodollar?