Today we have a guest blogger, a friend of mine who wishes to remain anonymous. Here are his thoughts on Social Security:
The myth of the Social Security Trust Fund is one of the most pernicious bald-faced lies in political and financial history.
The "Payroll Tax" has been spent in real time as normal revenue for generations, creating a debt--not an asset that can be drawn upon--that will not be paid or will be partially paid by taxing future generations. I have known this for 25 years, but very few people believed me when I tried to explain it. They trusted the lies about a Trust Fund that the government and the mainstream press were telling them, and they couldn't believe that I could be right when Al Gore said it was all true in a national campaign on national television.
Any attempt by financially responsible individuals, whether Republican or Democrat, to try to rectify the situation over the decades has been demagogued by the Democrats, who fraudulently scare old people by claiming that the reformers are trying to steal their money paid in over the years. In reality, their money had long since been stolen by a free-spending Congress. What the Dems didn't want was a cut in their own tax revenues, which are used to purchase re-election.
Yes, there have been Republican leaders complicit in this scheme over time, and Republican legislators have helped spend the money. But the attempts to reform have generally come from conservative Republicans and the absolutely dishonest scare-tactic propaganda has always come from the left.
It is inconceivable to me that only journalists from the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Forbes, and The National Review were able to stumble upon this truth over the last 30 years. All the investigative journalists at the NY Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, etc. have chosen to ignore or soft pedal this very important and verifiable fact. Draw your own conclusions as to whether they are stupid and incompetent or committed to liberal orthodoxy.
It is not hyperbole to say that the myth of the Social Security Trust Fund makes Bernie Madoff look like a lousy three-card monte dealer on a street corner in Des Moines, Iowa.
Make sure you save your own money for retirement. Link to a good article about this below, which is what got me on my high horse this morning.
Well yes. But then the only way that there could be a trust fund would be if the U.S. had no national debt and the surplus as a positive sitting on the balance sheet. So far as I know, the U.S. has never not had a national debt.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. is the greatest Ponzi scheme ever invented. Europe and Japan have learned the secret of our success and Ponzied their way to wealth.
Take away the Ponzi and it all goes down in flames like the Hindenburg, including the assets in your private accounts.
It's good for another 100 or 200 years. You'll be dead and gone by then so don't get so worked up about it.
As far as the US government is concerned, you are correct in terms of a net balance. But as far as the folks who have paid into the social security system is concerned, if SS had an actuarially sound segregated account from which to draw on--which is the promise of the Social Security Trust Fund--they would be in a lot better shape.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the Ponzi, of course, but you are more optimistic about how long it can survive.
The SS is at least backed by tax dollars. You can say it is fully funded or you can say it is not funded at all depending on how you allocate the tax dollars. That is all basically mental accounting.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line is the SS is no more a Ponzi scheme than the entire United States. The entire reason we are so rich is because we have Ponzied our way to wealth. Take away the Ponzi and we will be as poor as everyone else. Our monetary system is a Ponzi scheme.
America ponzis away and does not allow the poorer countries of the world to Ponzi which allows us to buy their stuff for nothing and keeps them in salvary to the Ponzi world.
Don't limit the scam to SS. The post needs to be retited: The U.S. -- The Greatest Scam Ever Invented.
A Ponzi scheme that allows you to print your own currency can last for a long, long time if it's done right.
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ReplyDeleteTo the last person who's comment was deleted:
ReplyDeleteAs I said before, you are no longer welcome to post comments on this site. This is not because you have a different view than the Naked Dollar, it's because your posts are consistently juvenile, ad hominem, and poorly written at that. You ad nothing to any discussion.