[vetvetdoug]

Ponzi Scheme is right and my generation is on the ground floor of the pyramid that is going to get screwed.

[buwaya]

Its not really a Ponzi scheme - its just a normal European social insurance system, of the sort invented by Otto von Bismarck, with some chrome and styling to make it look like an investment fund. This was needed to make the sale originally. It should have been stripped off long ago to simplify the issue.

All the money has always gone into the black box of government finance. No investment there. Just part of the money-supply balance.

The real problem is not the fiddly financial aspects of it but the basic economic one (economics really isn't about money) of too few workers supporting too many non-workers.

The Europeans are 10-20 years ahead of the US in facing this, as their populations are older and their fertility rate is lower, as is their immigration/assimilation rate.

So far, no disaster over there, but definitely problems with stagnation.