RobP said:
So Dex, your counter to federally mandated soc sec is to mandate another soc security program? Doesn't make much sense to me since it'd still be SSI.
My point is, federally requiring participation in
some form of retirement plan, possibly in a range of "approved" private retirement plans is - although not as effective a form of wealth preservation as simply letting people determine their own investments - certainly better than not investing the money at all and simply moving it around with SSI.
Since I was replying to your claims that anarchy and social disintigration would result from abolishing SSI, I was pointing out that the spectrum was hardly as unitary as you were claiming.
RobP said:
And no, teens are historically unable to save. Under the proposed theory here to eliminate SSI, those same teens would have NOTHING in the event of a catastrophe. Yet you seem to believe that making them participate in a safety net type program is somehow wrong even though the program is designed to benefit anyone who needs it.
You'd rather laugh at your good fortune that it isn't you who is drowning and pleading for someone to toss a rope. Screw the rest of the world, at least you're OK.
Reprehensible is the only unmoderated word I can think of that describes that kind of thinking.
<snort> Oh, my, an Ad Hominem attack! How fierce and frightening. [Dex faints, off stage.]
And by the same token, you'd rather lock an the vast majority of the entire population of America into poverty in their old age rather than allow people the freedom to make more intelligent investments. I say the vast majority, because obviously the rich will simply take the 12.5% SSI hit as a loss and make real investments for their retirement. It is the poor who cannot afford to lose 12.5% of their earnings on a worthless "investment" and re-invest - and so will never have the extra money to invest twice, and will be stuck with SSI.
RobP said:
And it isn't a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme is (note this word) illegal.
SSI isn't "illegal" since it is a duly passed, signed, and executed federal law. As such it cannot be a ponzi scheme.
Interesting reasoning! And Pi will be equal to 3.000 just as soon as the ink is dry on the legislation proclaiming it so.
[Scratch that...]
Remind me to pass federal legislation declaring rocks, dirt and gravel as "nutricious food" and cardboard boxes as "luxury housing." According to you, that should take care of food and housing for the nation, all legal and proper.
A horse is a horse (not a rock), and a rock is a rock (not yourself), and a ponzi scheme is a ponzi scheme (not a valid investment), because of certain particular physical properties that distinguish one thing from another within physical reality. Ponzi schemes are illegal because they are fraudulent since they don't work as the investments that they represent themselves to be. But that has nothing to do with whether something exists or fails to exist
because it is illegal.
Using your "logic", it is not gambling when you spend 50% of your salary playing the Lotto - because the Lotto is legal and gambling is not, and therefore playing the Lotto is not gambling. Oddly enough, governments frequently do things that they make illegal for private individuals to do. That doesn't mean that they are always a good idea.
Oddly enough, when Ponzi himself first invented the idea, it wasn't illegal either.
The analogy between SSI and a Ponzi scheme is that
in both systems, no investment that allows an increase in the actual funds exists. Money simply is paid by one set of people, goes through a pipeline where administrative funds are subtracted, and is paid out at the other end. This
IS what happens with SSI.
RobP said:
It can't be wealth redistribution because the wealth isn't being "redistributed". It's being returned to the contributors who paid premiums into the program. If you believe that it IS wealth redistribution, then ALL insurance programs are and you'd better cancel all your policies because such a scam is certainly socialist in nature.
No, it isn't "being returned".
- First of all, taking $500,000 away from me and then "returning" $500,000 40 years later would be more than completely worthless: It would completely waste 40 years of possible increase in monitary value.
- Second, you don't have a "right" to this alleged "returned" money: those paying into Social Security have not the slightest legal claim on the money they pay in, according to 1960 Supreme Court of the United States decision in Flemming v. Nestor: the court explicitly ruled that paying into the system does not make receiving benefits a "contractual right."
- Third, a real insurance plan takes the money you pay in premiums and invests it increasing the money - that's why you don't have to pay a million dollars to get a million dollar life insurance policy. SSI does not - it simply takes from some people and gives it to other people, with no increase in wealth in-between, but with massive administrative costs.
If you actually have an interest in not sounding staggeringly ignorant, try here:
Ponzi_scheme
[Or not, as you like - whether you sound ignorant or not is really not my concern.]
Dex
I have been there, I know.) I started out as a laborer but had the "GI Bill" available to me, so after a few years and two sons I used it and earned an Engineering degree. From that point I did a lot better than average but now I still find the SS check every month mighty handy for paying my bills,
especailly after 5 years that has seen my gasoline bill, my home energy, as well as all of my additional bills more than double,
while my SS check got smaller 
or stayed about the same(with medicare programs that charge against it). But, those who are of the wealther class, the bushes and cheneys, who will never need the income, so what????
version of Social Security. Beyond being extra-generous in its retirement payments, CSRS also allowed people leaving (but not retiring from) government jobs to withdraw their contributions (without interest). CSRS was replaced by the Federal Employees Retirement Systems (FERS) because CSRS was simply becoming too expensive. FERS is made up of a combination of Social Security, a tiny supplemental government pension, and tax-advantaged savings and investment opportunities.