Was His Death A Wake-Up Call?

[cheri1122]

AMonger: there is no way you have proven that SS is a Ponzi scheme, because it's not - a Ponzi scheme is an illegal con game deliberately set up to defraud 'investors'. SS doesn't fit the definition, you are wrong when you say it does, period.
Do you also consider it theft when people file an insurance claim [medical, property, etc]? After all, the money that pays their claim may be more than they've paid into the plan, therefore coming out of other peoples' contributions, right?
The taxes we pay [and like OVM said, it's a lot more that city/state/federal - there are taxes, fees, and sneaky charges added to many things - I found 4 separate fees added to a rental car!] are to pay for 'the common welfare' as the government sees fit to apportion the money.
Corporations who pay no taxes are the thieves, because they benefit from roads, utilities, police, fire, emergency response teams [like hazmat & bomb disposal], etc. Those benefits are paid by taxes to which they contribute nothing, so why are they entitled to benefit from them?
Character, [individual or collective] is revealed by how one behaves when times are tough - the character revealed by the self centered "I got mine, too bad for your luck" attitude will never ever contribute to a successful society, but only hasten it's demise.
No society can succeed by allowing the powerful to prey on the less powerful, and I would very much like this society to succeed.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

What positive impact will on society will contributing to the conversation have? None imo.

OVM can obviously take the ribbing. So its fun for me to watch AMonger judge people and call them names.

Someones always bustin my chops.....guess I should learn to duck...LOL

 

[greg334]

I would like to know if a ponzi scheme is where you have an initial investor who then gets paid with someone else's money?

 

[Turtle]

What positive impact will on society will contributing to the conversation have? None imo.

Really? I believe just the opposite, that every time someone voices their opinion that society becomes richer, smarter, and more intelligent about itself, and the people can better carve out their importance with in the society.

 

[AMonger]

AMonger: there is no way you have proven that SS is a Ponzi scheme, because it's not - a Ponzi scheme is an illegal con game deliberately set up to defraud 'investors'. SS doesn't fit the definition, you are wrong when you say it does, period.

Actually, I did prove it, quite well, aamof. But since your ideologic zeal (or guilty conscience) prevents you from agreeing with me on this, perhaps you'll believe these 3 Nobel Prize-winning economists:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/09/is-social-security-a-ponzi-scheme.html

Read past the article into the comments. There's some debate from those who disagree, and some more is hashed out there.

Do you also consider it theft when people file an insurance claim [medical, property, etc]? After all, the money that pays their claim may be more than they've paid into the plan, therefore coming out of other peoples' contributions, right?

First, those contributions are voluntary, and don't depend on recruiting new investors, the new investors being the sole source of what appears to be economic growth. In an insurance plan, you are paid from proceeds of the group that exists when you join (in addition to newcomers), and second, the insurance company is ACTUALLY generating economic growth on investment. In Ponzi schemes, that economic growth is absent; new suckers provide the APPEARANCE of economic growth, just like social security). One of the three economists in the article above makes that point: it's the actuarial unsoundness of social security that makes it a Ponzi Scheme.

Third, insurance plans have benefit caps. In extreme cases, an insurance company will actually send an exec to the scene to pinch pennies on individual payouts. I remember a case in which a teenager lost his arms in a tractor accident. The cost was going to be immense. The health insurance company sent an exec to watch over and regulate medical expenses as they occurred. She said she was there to "maximize his future benefits." I gave a Turtle snort over the language, saying as she was there to minimize payout, but when you later learn that policies have maximum payouts, usually $1 million, you realize that anything she saves will be what's left over to him later.

The Ponzi scheme known as social security has no cap, and that's how Ida Fuller, the first SS recipient ever, was able to collect 1000 times her money.

The taxes we pay [and like OVM said, it's a lot more that city/state/federal - there are taxes, fees, and sneaky charges added to many things - I found 4 separate fees added to a rental car!] are to pay for 'the common welfare' as the government sees fit to apportion the money.

There's another important distinction. You're trying to cite the "general welfare" clause. General welfare, we learn from reading the writings of the founders, cannot refer to individuals, but to all. A road can involve the general welfare, or a bridge, but not certain groups of individuals, or a percentage of the population over here at the expense of this other group.

Corporations who pay no taxes are the thieves, because they benefit from roads, utilities, police, fire, emergency response teams [like hazmat & bomb disposal], etc. Those benefits are paid by taxes to which they contribute nothing, so why are they entitled to benefit from them?

Corporations with investors are legally, morally, and ethically bound to try to make as much profit as possible with the money they've been given. Paying as little tax as possible is their financial responsibility. In addition, to not have the Acme Widget factory blow up or burn down benefits the town, the employees, and even the corporate officers and owner, who do pay taxes.

In addition, even if they paid huge taxes, anybody who knows anything about economics knows that under no circumstance do corporations actually pay taxes. Anything going out to the taxman is passed on to consumers who buy their widgets. So individuals pay all the taxes, anyway. The only difference is whether or not it's disguised and then passed on to you later, like your rental car taxes.

Character, [individual or collective] is revealed by how one behaves when times are tough

On that, we agree. To resort to stealing because you're sick reveals one's true character, and it's not pretty. To steal from a taxpayer you've never met, nine states away, instead of relying on one's family, church, and local charitable organizations reveals severe character defects.

No society can succeed by allowing the powerful to prey on the less powerful, and I would very much like this society to succeed.

People keeping the fruit of their own labors to provide for themselves and expecting others to do the same is "prey(ing) on the less powerful?" That sounds like communism, to me.

YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO OTHER PEOPLES' MONEY. PERIOD.

 

[cheri1122]

While the underlying structural premise of SS may resemble a Ponzi scheme, the crucial [and definitive] element is absent: intent to defraud. SS may require adjustments as the workforce/beneficiary ratio changes, [thrown out of balance by the unanticipated loss of tremendous numbers of jobs - due not to market conditions, but simple desire to increase profits, ie: greed] the system was and remains vastly preferable to the alternative: allow/force citizens to invest and save on their own for retirement [does Enron, Tyco, WorldCom ring any bells?] or spend their final years in poverty, begging, [or worse]. Further, it is 'in trouble' solely because the shortsighted lamebrains in charge have allowed it to be 'converted' to other uses, [making the deficit look less frightening] not because it is or was unsound.
Your characterization of a company's legal, moral, and ethical obligations is one that has gained popularity only in the last few decades, and it is morally and ethically unacceptable on the part of any part of a civilized society. It takes without giving back, undermining the whole concept of civilized society.

 

[greg334]

Cheri,
I can see your points but remember that until people were told they were living in poverty by those who "knew better", many accepted their situation and worked within those limitations.

No matter how you want to put it into a positive light, the premise of Social Security was predicated on three facts, the economy and workforce would expand and the system would run a surplus, the system would not add any politically expedient features and the average age would not rise more than it did for the previous 160 years before Social Security was enacted. The thought at the time was clearly this would not be an ongoing perpetual thing but it happened that way.

The biggest thing that happen was the great society where the feds expanded the social security system that took from the general fund which was starting to have BIG surpluses. The other thing that happen was the contraction of our workforces in the 80's and 20 years later tied with the average life expectancy being above what the system can have.

No matter how you want to "fix" the system, two important things have to happen, the first is those who can afford not to have it, should not get it - which includes accounting for one's assets and the other is to increase taxes to the point that it would shadow a combination of state, local and federal income taxes that the person pays. Either way, it won't be fixed so it will go insolvent and belly up.

 

[xiggi]

While the underlying structural premise of SS may resemble a Ponzi scheme, the crucial [and definitive] element is absent: intent to defraud. SS may require adjustments as the workforce/beneficiary ratio changes, [thrown out of balance by the unanticipated loss of tremendous numbers of jobs - due not to market conditions, but simple desire to increase profits, ie: greed] the system was and remains vastly preferable to the alternative: allow/force citizens to invest and save on their own for retirement [does Enron, Tyco, WorldCom ring any bells?] or spend their final years in poverty, begging, [or worse]. Further, it is 'in trouble' solely because the shortsighted lamebrains in charge have allowed it to be 'converted' to other uses, [making the deficit look less frightening] not because it is or was unsound.

I think SS does very much qualify as a Ponzi scheme as it is toady. Not that the original intent was such but today it is what it is. You mention intent to defraud as a crucial argument. I quote Senator Harry Reed.

March 2011
“Social security has not added a single penny, not a dime, a nickel, a dollar to the budget problems we have. Never has, and for the next 30 years it won't do that.”

Jan 2011
"Social Security is a program that works and it's going to be, it's fully funded for the next 40 years"

If that is not intent to defraud or mislead I am not sure what is,

Any sensible investments over a 30 or 40 year period will return more money than SS ever will despite the enrons and investments in that vain. You never stick a large portion of investments in any one stock or type of stock.

 

[cheri1122]

Xiggi: I agree that SS needs some tweaking, as any system would after many years of changing conditions - but the intent was to make retirement a time when people who worked their whole lives didn't need to worry about basic necessities, and we still need that. Too many people are not capable of investing and/or saving, or they do, then suffer a run of bad luck, illness, family responsibilities, whatever, and the money is gone. Allowing them to starve is hardly a good idea, is it?
As AM pointed out how companies never pay taxes, but pass them on to customers, the same is true of the costs of poor people: they will be born by society, one way or another.
It's the best way we know to provide for the years when working people can't work any longer - if it needs fixed, then fix it, but calling it a Ponzi scheme and insisting it's wrong is just nuts, IMO.

 

[AMonger]

Xiggi: I agree that SS needs some tweaking, as any system would after many years of changing conditions - but the intent was to make retirement a time when people who worked their whole lives didn't need to worry about basic necessities, and we still need that. Too many people are not capable of investing and/or saving, or they do, then suffer a run of bad luck, illness, family responsibilities, whatever, and the money is gone...
It's the best way we know to provide for the years when working people can't work any longer - if it needs fixed, then fix it, but calling it a Ponzi scheme and insisting it's wrong is just nuts, IMO.

The inherent immorality of social security is demonstrated by this statement of yours from an earlier message:

"the system was and remains vastly preferable to the alternative: allow/force citizens to invest and save on their own for retirement."

You call paying your own bills in your old age being FORCED. Cheri, paying your own bills in your old age is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. And if you fail to do that, that doesn't give you our anyone else the right to Other People's Money. If we have such people, they can turn to charity, not theft.

My retirement plans aren't doing so well; maybe I'll have to do that. But I'm not going to expect a working person, who has bills and their own retirement to see to, to be forced to support me.

WHAT PART OF "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL" DIDN'T YOU UNDERSTAND?

Well, Lord, uh, Cheri, Nancy Pelosi, and the ghost of Karl Marx told me it wasn't stealing.

 

[paullud]

Social security is NOT stealing, it is a junk retirement system that we willingly pay into, we can leave the country, not work, or work under the table, granted these are not the best options but they are still available to us. You can certainly make the case that welfare or food stamps is stealing if people are using them as a way of life but as citizens we have setup a system to take care of people in retirement.

Posted with my Droid EO Forum App

 

[cheri1122]

AM: our entire system of government funded by taxpayers is based upon spending 'other people's money': there is no accounting for who put in how much to determine how much benefit [roads, schools, police, military] they're entitled to in return, so your whole argument is flawed right there.
Most citizens pay their own way, using earned income. Reality dictates that some will find themselves without income at some point, [hopefully not until retirement] and therefore, no way to cover their responsibilities. You can argue tiill you're purple about how it's 'nobody's fault but their own', and in some cases [not all, or even most, I think], you'd be correct - they were stupid, reckless, whatever.
But my point is that a civilized society [which is still what we want, correct?] doesn't allow it's members to starve, or die of neglect, because that's UNcivilized. A civilized society does whatever it can to promote the general welfare, which includes planning for the days when it's productive workers aren't any longer. And some folks require some help in saving money, and even more require help in investing it, so do we help, or throw them to the wolves?
Note: the 'people are entitled to the fruits of their labors' line is just a wee bit misleading, cause we're not talking about people whose labor is what the image conjures, in every case. Are the CEO's who bankrupt a huge company entitled? Or the ones who are given a 'golden parachute' to just go away? How about the Wall Street shysters and bankers who profit from the trust mistakenly placed in them? And the politicians whose entire career is spent voting for bad laws, or none at all? Or the CIA operatives who work to overthrow a lawfully elected foreign government, as in the link posted recently?
Not ALL 'labor' is honorable or deserving of reward.

 

[AMonger]

AM: our entire system of government funded by taxpayers is based upon spending 'other people's money': there is no accounting for who put in how much to determine how much benefit [roads, schools, police, military] they're entitled to in return, so your whole argument is flawed right there.

Not at all. I dont believe that general welfare items are to be calculated on the basis of who put in what, therefore they deserve "this" much. We pay taxes into the general fund, and everybody received the benefits without regard to what they put in. It was you who said some "greedy" corporations don't pay, yet they get the benefit of those.

Unapportioned general welfare items, in which all society benefits, are constitutional; non-general welfare items, in which certain individuals benefit, are not.

Most citizens pay their own way, using earned income. Reality dictates that some will find themselves without income at some point, [hopefully not until retirement] and therefore, no way to cover their responsibilities.

Their responsibilities are to be covered by their savings, investments, family, and charity. To see to it that they're not a burden on society is their responsibility while they're working. To not steal is always a responsibility.

You can argue tiill you're purple about how it's 'nobody's fault but their own', and in some cases [not all, or even most, I think], you'd be correct - they were stupid, reckless, whatever.

I can see arguments about how it's not always their fault. Crazy things happen. Maybe they were invested in Enron and had their savings pilfered, or maybe some catastrophic illness in the family wiped out their savings. Or maybe one of a hundred other things. But that doesn't make Bill Johnson of Barstow, CA liable for their bills, or Bill Gates of Redmond, WA, or Warren Buffet, or you or me. It just doesn't.

But my point is that a civilized society [which is still what we want, correct?] doesn't allow it's members to starve, or die of neglect, because that's UNcivilized.

That's what charity is for. Money given freely and willingly without coercion. Anything else is theft.

I agree we don't want people dying in the street or old women eating dog food or turning to crime. That's what CHARITY is for. How did you get the idea that charity is bad but stealing is good?

A civilized society does whatever it can to promote the general welfare, which includes planning for the days when it's productive workers aren't any longer.

That's not the general welfare. General welfare is the military, medical research, bridges, roads, etc. Not individual retirement using other people's money against their will.

Civilized societies don't steal our otherwise send one person's bills to someone else and force payment.

And some folks require some help in saving money, and even more require help in investing it, so do we help, or throw them to the wolves?

Help them all you want--with YOUR OWN money. Tell them where the Salvation Army is. Start your own soup kitchen or food pantry. Contribute to all the social services you want. But no public money. Using public money is theft.

I imagine you've seen the piece about how a farmer educated Col. Davey Crockett about the proper uses of public money? The constitution doesn't permit private use of public money.

Note: the 'people are entitled to the fruits of their labors' line is just a wee bit misleading, cause we're not talking about people whose labor is what the image conjures, in every case. Are the CEO's who bankrupt a huge company entitled? Or the ones who are given a 'golden parachute' to just go away? How about the Wall Street shysters and bankers who profit from the trust mistakenly placed in them? And the politicians whose entire career is spent voting for bad laws, or none at all? Or the CIA operatives who work to overthrow a lawfully elected foreign government, as in the link posted recently?
Not ALL 'labor' is honorable or deserving of reward.

More marxist claptrap.

 

[greg334]

But my point is that a civilized society [which is still what we want, correct?] doesn't allow it's members to starve, or die of neglect, because that's UNcivilized.

I'm trying to figure out where there is a civilized society in today's world that can qualify that statement.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

AM..put as nicely as I can...you are so full of crap....

Ya fill out an application, meet the criteria..and they hand you benefits is neither stealing nor immoral.....

Your elected officials set these programs up to be used by those who qualify.....have an issue? Take it up with them and get it changed...till then I'll use what resources that are legally available....

 

[cheri1122]

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I'm trying to figure out where there is a civilized society in today's world that can qualify that statement.

Damifino - I'm trying to figure out what kind of society AM and others like him envision - it sounds a lot like the Nazis' visions of a super race, without any tolerance for deviation from what is deemed 'correct' behavior. Like, if you have no savings [maybe because it went for medical bills] and no family [or none who is willing to help] then you have to let the Salvation Army [or whatever 'charity' you find] preach at you - because that's the cost of 'free' religious charity. [ Which is one reason so many homeless refuse to go to shelters - they don't care for the religion being shoved down their throats in return for a bowl of soup. Can't say I blame 'em, either.]
And the "Marxist" retort? That's got to be the lamest defense of an indefensible practice EVER.....

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Damifino - I'm trying to figure out what kind of society AM and others like him envision - it sounds a lot like the Nazis' visions of a super race, without any tolerance for deviation from what is deemed 'correct' behavior. Like, if you have no savings [maybe because it went for medical bills] and no family [or none who is willing to help] then you have to let the Salvation Army [or whatever 'charity' you find] preach at you - because that's the cost of 'free' religious charity. [ Which is one reason so many homeless refuse to go to shelters - they don't care for the religion being shoved down their throats in return for a bowl of soup. Can't say I blame 'em, either.]
And the "Marxist" retort? That's got to be the lamest defense of an indefensible practice EVER.....

I hope AM is in the minority...

 

[AMonger]

I hope AM is in the minority...

I am. Unfortunately.

But that doesn't make me wrong.

Those who wanted independence from Great Britain in the late 18th century were in the minority, and a decided minority. Those in favor of freedom and individual responsibility are always in the minority.

Bastiat said, "Democracy is that system of government in which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else."

That sounds like he was talking about the majority. Does that sound right to you?

Trying to live at the expense of others is a character flaw. I'm sorry to see it in you.

 

[AMonger]

AM..put as nicely as I can...you are so full of crap....

Ya fill out an application, meet the criteria..and they hand you benefits is neither stealing nor immoral.....

Your elected officials set these programs up to be used by those who qualify.....have an issue? Take it up with them and get it changed...till then I'll use what resources that are legally available....

Having been a Canadian, I'm not surprised that you think that way. Canadians seem like nice people, but you're a little too socialistic for most Americans' tastes. Just recognize that's the case and that Americans are more individualistic than you (or at least, our forefathers, who were better men than we, were).

That it meets the criteria of a program passed by criminals doesn't mean it's not immoral our stealing.

And you're not the best judge. You've already admitted stealing.

 

[AMonger]

Damifino - I'm trying to figure out what kind of society AM and others like him envision - it sounds a lot like the Nazis' visions of a super race, without any tolerance for deviation from what is deemed 'correct' behavior.

No, I said if they can't support themselves, there's charity. That is an allowance for people who screwed up or just got very unlucky, so they don't starve in the street.be You're not paying very close attention.

Like, if you have no savings [maybe because it went for medical bills] and no family [or none who is willing to help] then you have to let the Salvation Army [or whatever 'charity' you find] preach at you - because that's the cost of 'free' religious charity. [ Which is one reason so many homeless refuse to go to shelters - they don't care for the religion being shoved down their throats in return for a bowl of soup. Can't say I blame 'em, either.]

Figures. That explains a lot about your attitude toward stealing.

But as far as religious charities go, where are the atheist rescue missions? Where are the objectivist soup kitchens? If you don't like the way they operate, why don't you start your own? Let me guess, you'll find something wrong with that, too, and anything else that doesn't involve living at the expense of everybody else so you dont have to be responsible for yourself.

And the "Marxist" retort? That's got to be the lamest defense of an indefensible practice EVER.....

Much of what you've said is hostility toward management or ownership. That was Marx's defining ideology. If you said that stuff once our twice, that would be different, but it's been a common theme with you.