Perry Revives Social Security ‘Ponzi Scheme’ Rhetoric

[TomCADem]

Source: KUT

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry was asked about Social Security during a campaign stop in Ottumwa, Iowa, last weekend, he didn’t mince words. He suggested that younger workers who are required to pay into the retirement system are the victims of a government swindle.

“We need to have a conversation with America, just like we’re having right here today, and admit that is a Ponzi scheme for these young people,” Perry said. “The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, the current program, that it’s going to be there for them, is a lie.”

Perry used similar “Ponzi scheme” language to describe Social Security in Fed Up, the book he wrote last year. A campaign spokesman tried to soft-pedal that view in an interview with the Wall Street Journal this month, noting that the book was written before Perry decided to run for president, and saying it doesn’t reflect the governor’s current views.

But Perry himself made no such distinction at a weekend appearance in Des Moines.


Read more: http://kut.org/2011/08/perry-revives-social-security-ponzi-scheme-rhetoric/

[jtuck004]

1. Rick Perry wants to make your SS a Ponzi Scheme. We watched Reagan

raise taxes so that the system could provide for the rush of people (8000 a day turning 65 now), a third of whom were never paid
enough to save anything for retirement. So we know it can be done - his own party did it.

For those that are younger, know that this is his way of telling you that a fall is coming without telling you he wants to be the one to drag you up to the roof and throw you off. He hates the Americans who worked in this country, and wants to send them deeper into poverty.

Mean spirited little bastard. I wonder if he was thinking about how to hurt people when he was a Democrat? I wonder how many more people there are out there just like him today, calling themselves Democrats then trying to hurt others.

[defendandprotect]

3. Capitalism is the biggest "Ponzi Scheme" that's ever existed ... !!!

A ridiculous "King-of-the-Hill" System --

intended to move the wealth and natural resources of a nation from the many to the few --

and it's done that very successfully all over the world!!

[demgrrrll]

4. I remember reading the Rolling Stone article about all the people

who showed up at a tea party event with all their medicare gear, oxygen, scooters etc...... This does not seem like the message that will get those folks stampeding or rolling to the polls. I bet he refines this message so it would appear that the only people who will lose benefits are the undeserving poor or something close to that. Teapartiers would love getting to take things away from people they do not think they deserve benefits. This message in its current form seems like an all around loser.

[defendandprotect]

2. It's Wall Street and the many corporations we've had to bail out which are Ponzi Schemes...!!

Social Security is a highly successful program -- with $2.7 TRILLION in assets.

What's the RW ever done for America except give us wars and bankrupt the Treasury?

[Cool Logic]

8. "Social Security is a highly successful program -- with $2.7 TRILLION in assets."

There is only one thing wrong with your analogy. Your $2.7 T in assets has been consumed.

You make the mistake of believing that Social Security has $2.7 T of assets without examining and realizing that these assets predominately consist of receivables from the general fund (Tbonds). Furthermore, these receivables aren't collectible unless more taxes are collected from the people who anted up the missing $2.7 T in the first place.

All to often I read or hear news of someone being swindled. Most of the schemes employed are so simplistic and obvious in nature, that it is beyond my realm of comprehension how someone could have fallen for it.

American workers have been swindled out $2.7 T and many of will not realize it until its too late.

[defendandprotect]

9. So have ALL the assets contributed by China, Mexico and any other nation funding our debt ....

You decide -- is Uncle Sam going to be a "dead beat" -- ?

How long before they don't return funds to Social Security before they

don't return funds to nations?

And just think where our ratings and interest rates will be if that new

poster says not "I want you" but 'WANTED FOR EMBEZZLEMENT' .... UNCLE SAM!!

[Cool Logic]

13. The difference is that China, Mexico and other nations will not be required to pay themselves back.

The key to comprehending the subject is to conceptualize American workers as investors in the SSTF. The SSTF trustees takes this cash and gives it to Congress in exchange for Treasury Bonds. Congress then takes the money and spends it. However, Congress refuses to combine these activities with the general fund and treats it as an off-balance sheet liability.

When a worker deposits $1 into the SSTF, the SSTF has a $1 liability. When the SSTF transfers the $1 to the general fund, the $1 is no longer a liability of the SSTF, but an amount held in "trust." This means that they are shown as a separate account in the federal budget, i.e., off-budget. SS is in an off-balance sheet obligation. Such obligations were part of the accounting fraud at Enron.

So now, instead of a liquid $2.7T lockbox, American workers have $2.7T worth of bonds that they must service, to make the SSTF solvent. In other words, American workers will essentially pay themselves back by anteing up another $2.7T.

How about those returns...?

[defendandprotect]

14. Elites used Social Security Surplus as slush fund -- TAX THE RICH ....which is what Americans want!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1864249&mesg_id=1867794

[Cool Logic]

16. Actually, it was our D & R Representatives who used the SS surplus as a slush fund...

"TAX THE RICH"

Democrats make the mistake of believing that taxing the rich is the be-all to end-all. However, if you confiscated all of the assets held by the Forbes 400, you could run the government for about 6.5 months. What then...?

Republicans make the mistake of thinking that reform and/or privatization solves the problem. Emphatically, it will not. It will still require $2.7 T to clean up this accounting scandal whether or not reform occurs.

[defendandprotect]

17. Congress used it for tax cuts for rich, for the wars -- Poppy Bush as a private slush fund ....

In fact, Poppy had been planning to send the IRS out after the POOR to get some

extra bucks in but the reaction to his plan was shock so Alan Greenspan increased

the FICA taxes on middle class and poor and that did it for Bush --

Evidently, that happened in the middle of one night in Congress!


If you truly think that Repugs are trying to do anything but simply steal money you are naive.

Democrats understand that investing in people/jobs is what creates capital/savings --

opportunities for business --

The New Deal was the greatest stimulus package ever -- !!

[Cool Logic]

18. Poppy Bush's private trust fund...? How is that possible when Democrats...

controlled the House and Senate during his term? If it happened in the "middle of the night," Democrats were up late.

If you truly think that Repugs are trying to do anything but simply steal money you are naive.

Actually, I know they are; however, I am not naive enough to believe Ds are any different. What you fail to realize is that our D & R Representatives have much more in common with one another than they do with there constituents.

In fact, while they may have said different things, the historical record indicates that the results of their policies was pretty much the same.

[defendandprotect]

19. You don't recall the trial balloon Poppy's administration sent up re IRS/Poor?

And a number of authors have written about the middle of the night effort by

Greenspan for Bush.

And, least of all would I not suggest that Dems have collaborated -- corporate

$$$ buys a lot of Dem Party silence --

As Wm. Greider has made clear in his book "Who Will Tell the People?" Democrats have

colluded with GOP back to 1978 in breaking the tax code for benefit of the rich --

while they were in full power and long before Reagan --


And I personally watched via C-span as George Mitchell turned the Dem Senate over to

Repug Robert Dole.


Ralph Nader has been reporting on all of this for 30/40 years --

However, trust in and for the party developed during the New Deal/FDR era continues on

with a few here still --

[on point]

5. To be fair, this is true, but pejorative and doesn't address the issue

SSI WAS set up as a pyramid. And we should acknowledge this in order to defend it better. In some sense it IS a ponzi scheme, but not in the pejorative sense he implies which is to defraud participants so that a crook walks away with the cash.

That is a growing population base would pay for a smaller population top. This however is NO different than humanity has always planned retirement. A bigger family would always pay for a smaller set of parents. Privatizing this scheme (like Perry wants) would not change the fundamental problem!!

Initially when set up there were no paid in insurance, but there was benefits set up to pay out right away. This would always work when the population base kept growing. However, this cannot go on forever and is one of the fallacies of our non sustainable economic model. As soon as the population stabilized, or started shrinking as with the post baby boom dip, this was going to lead to problems. That is why the claim that when it started there were, say 10 people to support every retiree and now say there are only 3 to support each (not sure of the Perry verbiage and actuals) IS numerically true!! THe SSI people pay in is not for themselves, it is for the current claimants, with the idea that when they claim later there would be others to pay for them.

It is best to acknowledge this fact and transform SSI over time to a paid in retirement fund based on the ability of a given population to support itself. This is doable, but not part of the discussion.

The planet should be reducing its human population across the board to help fight climate change and resource depletion. Falling fertility rates is a GOOD thing and people like the Europeans and the Japanese should be thrilled their population is shrinking. This is good for the planet, quality of life in those countries and can INCREASE the wealth of the population by a shrinking base inheriting the wealth of a larger population base.

However, our current capitalist model DEPENDS on an unrealistic, unsustainable ever growing population in order to feed an ever growing economy. It is actually that current capitalism is a pozi scheme, of which SSI is just a part. It is why falling fertility rates is causing consternation instead of happiness in Europe and Japan.

Best to acknowledge these facts and change to a sustainable model instead. The how is a discussion we need to have, but is beyond the current political climate.

[demgrrrll]

6. A ponzi scheme is fraud SS is not a fraudulent program.

[customerserviceguy]

7. When it fails to pay benefits because it went broke

It will be seen as a fraudulent program by whatever generation is left holding the bag.

[defendandprotect]

10. RW Uncle Sam will have embezzled funds -- Social Security Program will NOT have failed ...!!

[Yo_Mama]

15. It is a fraud under current conditions

Those who have been paying the current 12.4% all their lives have nothing left in the "trust fund" with which to get benefits.

We'll have to change the tax structure quite a bit to make it not a fraud. We need to do that.

[defendandprotect]

21. More than 300 million who have paid in could make an interesting lawsuit ... ???

[defendandprotect]

11. Derivatives and Hedge Funds are PONZI SCHEMES ... Bail outs are Ponzi Schemes ...!!

[kentuck]

12. To put it bluntly...

He's a lying stack of shit.

[supraTruth]

20. It will only become a ponzi scheme if Americans allow the CONS to turn it into 1.

[defendandprotect]

22. How many TRILLIONS to bail out capitalism after the financial coup...????