Can You Spell Ponzi?

Posted by rustylypps 10 years, 10 months ago to Politics
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Can you spell Ponzi ?
Get angry and pass this on!

Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500.

If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on
the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98.

If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!

If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.

Entitlement my ass, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!!

Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!

Congressional benefits ---- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick
days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement entitlements?

We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile , and Turkey. And now Pakistan ......home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour
Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it's time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? Imagine if the
*GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.

Sad isn't it?

I'm one of the 1% -- I Just Did.



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  • Posted by mminnick 10 years, 10 months ago
    Social security is not a retirement fund. It is a transfer fund. It was never set up as and actuarially sound operation. It was designed to take money from many people (initially a small amount) and give that money to people 65 and over. As was pointed out in another post, people at the time (mid 1930's) did not live much past 65 if they reached that age at all. The expenditure was minimal for the government. No expenditure, it was money taken from people and passed on to others.
    The situation has gotten worse over the years. People are living longer thus requiring more money to be transferred and thus more money to be taken from working people. There will come a point when there is enough money to be collected even at 100% to pay the transfer fund obligations. Then the system collapses.
    I do believe that this is the definition of a Ponzi scheme. They are illegal. Does that mean the entire FICA is illegal? Not sure but it seems to me we have a real contradiction here. Ponzi schemes are illegal (as Bernie Madoff) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Social Security is authorized by law. We have an illegal operation mandated by law. Very strange world we live in, right??
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    • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years, 10 months ago
      Beyond that, the money collected and supposed to be held in trust to be returned has instead been spent, with nothing other than IOU's left instead.
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    • Posted by 10 years, 10 months ago
      The investment rules governing payroll tax income were also established in the 1935, and are essentially the same ones in use today. Specifically, the 1935 Act stated: "It shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to invest such portion of the amounts credited to the Account as is not, in his judgment, required to meet current withdrawals. Such investment may be made only in interest-bearing obligations of the United States or in obligations guaranteed as to both principal and interest by the United States." (See Title II, Section 201of the 1935 law)

      In the 1939 Amendments, a formal trust fund was established and a requirement was put in place for annual reports on the actuarial status of the fund. Specifically, the law provided: "There is hereby created on the books of the Treasury of the United States a trust fund to be known as the 'Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund'. . . . The Trust Fund shall consist of the securities held by the Secretary of the Treasury for the Old Age Reserve Account on the books of the Treasury on January 1, 1940, which securities and amount the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed to transfer to the Trust Fund, and, in addition, such amounts as may be appropriated to the Trust Fund as herein under provided." (Title II, Section 201a)
      I don't give a dam what you call Social Security. Read the above statement to correct yourself please. Now, I don't care what its called, I will however get my moey back out of it that I have paid into it for the last 55 years. My point is where did all the money go?. Well It's still there. The money that is there was never supposed to be included in the federal budget, Its a Trust Fund folks
      period.

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      • Posted by mminnick 10 years, 10 months ago
        I hope the following is coherent. Getting later here on the east coast and it is snowing again her in south Jersey.
        The trust fund is a pool of money designed to pay out to the old aged and Survivors Fund. It is not a fund for specific individuals. I stand by my statement. It is a method to establish a transfer of money from the workers to those not working due to old age etc. The interest such as it is and the trust fund such as it is are all dependent upon the Federal government. All of the trust fund money is invested in Federal instruments. They depend upon the full faith and credit of the United States Government. To date they have not defaulted on any payment of interest or principal of the instruments held by the trust fund.
        I forget the date, but at some point the Sec. Treasury moved all of the trust fund market out of non-government instruments because “the fund would take too much of those instruments, not leaving enough for investors” [not sure if that is the exact quote but it is close.]. The long and the short of it is there is absolutely no real true guarantee that the money will be there when needed, except those monies brought in due to the current withholdings made on workers current salaries. I do suppose that the fed would bay the instruments held by the trust fund if the fund required cash reserves, but again, there is no guarantee they will. Remember, [if memory serves me right] the Federal Reserve Banks are Banks and not part of the Treasury Depart or any department of the Government. They don’t have to buy the securities held by the trust fund.
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