Social Security is the biggest rip off
in world history; it makes Bernie Madoff look like an amateur. From the
beginning it was known to be a Socialist Ponzi Scheme even being called socialism
in the Senate finance Committee hearing.
“A limited form of the Social
Security program began, during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term, as
a measure to implement "social insurance" during the Great Depression
of the 1930s, when poverty rates among senior citizens exceeded 50 percent. The
Act was an attempt to limit what were seen as dangers in the modern American
life, including old age, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widows and
fatherless children.
Opponents, however, decried the
proposal as socialism. In a Senate Finance Committee hearing, one Senator asked
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins "Isn't this socialism?" She said
that it was not, but he continued, "Isn't this a teeny-weeny bit of
socialism?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28United_States%29
The facts about Social Security are
these. Yes, it’s a Ponzi scheme, thus criminally fraudulent (as I’ll explain),
but even worse, because it coerces us to be a part of it. Since the scheme
began in 1935 the full force of the U.S. government has compelled a
growing portion of citizens to suffer by it, such that we all do so by now. A
scheme of such widespread, compulsory fraud is unprecedented in U.S.
history, and one of the most shameful (and popular) of FDR’s schemes.
Forbes Magazine-To better
understand why Social Security is fraudulent, one should grasp the valid
workings of private sector annuities, pensions, trusts, and similar investment
vehicles. In such cases purely voluntary contracts are written and enforced by
courts; clients pay money into the vehicle, the fiduciary invests and grows it,
and over time pays back funds with a gain to clients. Of course, results depend
on the investment climate, but the integrity, safety and soundness of this
private contract-based system fosters saving, investment and prosperity. If
fiduciaries or trustees violate contracts in any way they can be sued, fined
and/or jailed.
A “Ponzi scheme” (the term made
famous by Charles Ponzi in the early 1920s), like Bernie Madoff’s recent
scheme, and like any “pyramid” scheme or “chain letter,” is an operation that
pays alleged “investment returns” to clients from the clients’ own paid-in
funds and with payments by subsequent clients, rather than from investments in
productive assets or securities. The scheme entices new entrants by false
promises of returns that are unrealistically high, ever-rising, or even
abnormally-stable, all of which require ever-increasing inflows and hordes of
additional dupes, to keep all the fakery going. Unless the scheme keeps growing
and spreading, in time it must collapse, as the outflows swamp inflows; the
game of “musical chairs” halts when claims exceed cash (insolvency). Such
schemes are rare and tend not to last long or grow large in a free market,
since they aren’t mandatory, they ensnare increasingly suspicious clients, they
attract legitimate rivals eager to expose them, and they invite
publicity-hungry district attorneys to prosecute them.
By the way, it’s irrelevant whether
a Ponzi perpetrator sets out deliberately to inflict his scheme or instead only
ends up with one after many years of evading his bad results and “cooking the
books” to hide them. Either way, it’s still fraud. Likewise, by now it matters
not whether FDR’s New Dealers “intended” Social Security to be fraudulent
starting in 1935; the fact remains: it has long since become a fraud. Today
only fools or frauds dare deny it. Private-sector Ponzi schemes have built-in
sensors, enemies, and anti-fraud laws to prevent and terminate them, while
Social Security has the opposite: built-in perpetuators, coercion, muzzled and
shrinking rivals, a growing pool of serfs, millions of admiring heralds, and a
superficial air of legality.
Both Social Security (since 1935)
and it sister program, Medicare (since 1965) have been insolvent for years, as
is typical of a Ponzi scheme, and despite gargantuan increases in the tax rates
they inflict and the number of people they force to pay into them via automatic
paycheck deductions. FICA and Medicare tax rates, combined (and also for
employers and employers, together), increased steadily from just 2.25% of pay
between 1935 and 1953 to 4.50% by 1960, 6.90% by 1970, 8.10% by 1980, and 15.3%
by 1990 (where it now stands). Meanwhile the income on which these higher tax
rates apply has been repeatedly increased.
In a 1936 publicity pamphlet describing
the program to Americans, the Social Security Administration pledged that after
1949 the combined payroll tax rate of 6% would apply only to a worker’s annual
income up to $3,000 and “that is the most you will ever pay.” Yet that 6% rate
was breached under JFK (1962) and today’s rate (15.3%) is more than double the
1949 promised rate. Worse, today’s high rate applies to as much as $106,800
of annual income, which is more than triple the inflation-adjusted
equivalent of what $3,000 was worth in 1949 (i.e., $28,642). Thus instead of
paying $1,718/year (6% on income as high as $28,642), we’re now forced to pay
$16,340/year (15.3% on income as high as $106,800) – an increase of nearly ten-fold.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardsalsman/2011/09/27/social-security-is-much-worse-than-a-ponzi-scheme/
So by definition
and action it is a Ponzi Scheme both condoned and used by both political
parties which is Socialism and none of our elected leaders do anything about it
except increase collections by “ten-fold” in its life. Yes. Under the 1935 law, what we now
think of as Social Security only paid retirement benefits to the primary
worker. This meant you had to work to get benefits; no longer.
Under the present
guidance the Social Security Administration takes 10.4% for Social Security to
put aside for your retirement. It takes an additional 1.45% for Medicaid well
unless you are self employed then its 2.9% (isn’t discrimination?). Out of what
you have put into your account it removes 5% of the total balance a year for “Administrative
Cost”. What really angers me is it was set up to be a retirement plan for those
who paid into it when they retired. The average age of death for a male is 75
and a female is 80. If you work until
you are 62 you should with the average between male and female being 78. If you
work from 18 to 62 and pay in the average with your interest you should have
$465,267 in your account. The average Social Security payment is $1,230 which
means you would have to live to the age of 99 just to get your money back. The 16
year average length of life would give you $2443 a month, not $1,230. Now I
understand building in a comfort zone but does your family get what is left
over after you die especially if you die before ever getting a chance to draw
your Social Security, not really? If it was put the same amount on average into
a safe mutual fund there would be $930,818 in your account.
We should have
individual accounts set up for us still depositing the same amount but under a
private organization that will make us a profit for retiring. I don’t mind
giving 5% to help the elderly and disable who need our assistance. I do mind giving
my money to the lazy ones who refuse to work and illegal ones who break the
law. I’m sure if this Ponzi scheme was halted, the working given their money to
roll into an IRA, the lazy would realize they had get on the ball or else they
will be left out in the cold; literally.
