Social Sec. is a Ponzi scheme when handled by the gov.....

[matmar]

But when handed off to Wall Street it's not as demonstrated by their orchestration of the mortgage scam that brought down the economy.

[leftstreet]

1. Now you're getting it!

Welcome to DU

[Cool Logic]

2. The problem is nobody went to jail for looting the SSTF...

On the other hand, Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years imprisonment and a forfeiture of $17.179 billion.

[matmar]

4. except the SSTF hasn't been looted....

There are special T-Bills accounting for the cash. Has your savings account at your local bank been looted considering that it has probably been loaned out?

[Cool Logic]

5. American workers invested a $2.6 Trillion (surplus) in the SSTF...

The SSTF trustees took this cash and gave it to Congress in exchange for Treasury Bonds. Congress took the money and spent it. However, Congress did not combine these activities with the general fund and treated it as an off-balance sheet liability. Now, American workers must ante up another $2.6 Trillion, so service this debt.

How about them returns...?

[matmar]

6. The T-Bills get sold as they are needed

Which was the design as put in place with the Moynihan-Greenspan Commission from 1982-3. This isn't "looting" it's how it was designed to work.

[joeglow3]

7. Do me a HUGE favor

You can take out loans against your 401(k). Liquidate your entire 401(k) and spend all your money on vacations, toys, etc. Then, try to convince me that your 401(k) is worth the value of the IOU's you have given yourself.

You can say what you want, but if a private company used this kind of accounting, the SEC would shut them down and everyone here would be screaming for regulations and changes to GAAP. Sorry, but our politicans have sold us out and stolen that money to buy more political power.

[matmar]

8. You don't have the same powers the Federal Gov. has - lay and collect taxes or to print money

You, your 401(k) and the Federal Government are not the same. Your comparison is specious and your faith in the SEC to prosecute when they are actively shredding paper trails (as per Matt Taibbi's reporting in Rolling Stone) is naivete at the very least.

"if a private company used this kind of accounting" - really? How about the Pension Funds they've looted from their workers in the past without ever paying it back and with no method to pay it back...Your first mistake is thinking the Government and a private business are supposed to operate and function in a similar manner when they both have different functions.

Get a clue.

[joeglow3]

9. Get a clue?

1. I never questioned how they are supposed to operate. I am questioning how you account economic realities. You had Enron keeping liabilities off their balance sheet in SPE's and everyone is up in arms (rightly so), but the government keeps all its unfunded liabilites off the balance sheet and people say "well, government is different." Bull shit. A liability is a liability and if you have a report (i.e. a Balance Sheet) claiming to present said liabilities, the exclusion of them is intentionally misleading.

2. Take a remedial economics course and tell me what happens to inflation when the government prints a few trillion dollars out of thin air. Tell me what happens when you jack up tax rates to the point needed to pay tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities.

Wow. Simply amazing...

[matmar]

10. Yes, get a clue.

You're worried about inflation? Wow. Amazing.

Somebody call the NY Times and get them to fire Paul Krugman and hire this guy for his economics views

[joeglow3]

11. So, if I cite one scientist who says global climate change doesn't exist...

...then it doesn't?

That said, you are damn right I am worried about inflation. If the government prints trillions of dollars, the value of a dollar will drop. Individuals collecting social security will have diddly shit to live off of. The ONLY option would be to increase the amount of money paid out in social security, increasing funds the government needs to disperse. The government needs to print more money.....

Nice little circle. However, who gives a fuck, right? So long as I get mine, my kids can lube up their assholes later.

[DrunkenBoat]

14. Unfortunately for your narrative, there are many more than "one" economist telling me that narrative

is bs.

[DrunkenBoat]

13. The US government *isn't* a private company. That's your first mistake.

[DrunkenBoat]

12. The $2.5 trillion in the SS TF wasn't all put there by workers. A substantial portion of it

went in as interest payments from the feds. And the money that workers did put in wasn't looted. It's misleading to say so.

And it's simply wrong to say workers must ante up another $2.6 trillion, since it's the top 20% of the population that pays the lion's share of income tax -- the income stream through which the TF is repaid.

[Recursion]

3. A transparently-accounted system can't be a "scheme" of any sort

If Madoff had told his clients "I'm going to pay you back out of receipts from new enrolees" it would not have been a Ponzi scheme. Particularly if he had the power, like the government does, to compel participation.

SS does depend on some level of growth for sustainability, but then again so does the stock market. And money itself, for that matter.