re: #1 Obdicut

It’s not a Ponzi scheme. The artifact of its creation means that the first generations on it got more than they ‘should’ have. Now that they’re passing, it will no longer have any aspects of a Ponzi scheme.

Whereas I appreciate your response, it is an, absolutely, incorrect perception.

REGARDING: It’s not a Ponzi scheme.
Defintion (dictionary.com): PONZI SCHEME - an investment swindle in which early investors are paid with sums obtained from later ones in order to create the illusion of profitability.

The first recipient was a female who “invested” about $25 and received more than $20,000 during her retirement.

At its inception, the SS system was not designed to be an actuarially sound program.
The funding was from the workers, rather than from the federal government, as the funding should have been from the beginning.

The workers paid a maximum of $30 per year (1% of the first $3,000).
The program was designed to fund the current retirees, i.e., it was not designed actuarially correctly.

Perhaps I should re-characterize the program as a quasi-pyramid scheme (definition: a fraudulent scheme in which people are recruited to make payments to the person who recruited them while expecting to receive payments from the persons they recruit; when the number of new recruits fails to sustain the hierarchical payment structure the scheme collapses with most of the participants losing the money they put in), rather than a quasi-Ponzi scheme.

As time passed, adjustments were made to better fund the program, but they were insufficient to eliminate the pyramid descriptor.

About 4 months ago, Bill Clinton made a comment that we need MORE immigrants for the purpose of supporting the SS program, i.e., he was aware of the lack of actuarially soundness of the program.
Although, I have supported him over the years, I lost respect for him as I saw and heard him make that comment.

REGARDING: The artifact of its creation means that the first generations on it got more than they ‘should’ have. Now that they’re passing, it will no longer have any aspects of a Ponzi scheme.
RESPONSE: Is that perception derived from NEW or OLD math?
If the hole was never filled in, isn’t the hole still there?
lol

mz