Posted on 09/09/2011 7:02:13 AM PDT by shield
Betcha didn’t see this one coming.
On MSNBC’s Thursday broadcast of “Hardball,” host Chris Matthews committed the mortal sin — he nearly parroted the theory that mortified so many of the network’s hosts and guests throughout the day. Matthews called Social Security “a Ponzi scheme” the day after Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry doubled down on his previous statements echoing that sentiment in the Republican debate (h/t Matt Lewis)
Matthews first put forth what he thought Social Security was originally intended to be: “You pay for it while you work. When you retired and have no other form of income, this will help you out. In fact, a lot were impoverished in the old days without Social Security. It’s a great anti-poverty program. But then people started to live past 65. Even the great Franklin Roosevelt didn’t make it to 65. In those days, if you made it to 65, you were lucky. You got a few bucks on Social Security.” (RELATED: Has Chris Matthews lost his mind?)
Then he put forth what it has become: “Today, lots of people fortunately make it past 65,” he said. “They live into their 80s and 90s. They’re still getting checks. The system doesn’t work that way anymore. It’s not as healthy as it once was. So, how does a Republican deal with the fact it is a Ponzi scheme in the sense that the money that’s paid out every day is coming from people who have paid in that day. It’s not being made somewhere.”
Todd Harris, Matthews’ guest and a Republican strategist agreed. “That’s absolutely right,” Harris said. “And you will never get back the amount of money that you paid into it under its current structures.”
“Certainly, poor people did pretty well,” Matthews replied. “That’s the idea.”
It is ridiculous to call Social Security a Ponzi Scheme. Governments for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, have provided a pension plan for the elderly, disabled, and military retirees.
This is a reasonable thing for our government to do. The fact that our economists and politicians have let us down by allowing it to become financially damaged does not make it deserve the title “Ponzi” scheme. I’ll bet Ponzi would agree with me.
Interesting assertion: which governments did this?
Excepting ONLY military retirees, your tagline is right on the mark.
Is it constitutional?
1. Liberals generally know the truth, they just choose to ignore it.
2. Chrissy has had moments of lucidity in the past.
You know, Perry just might sail away with this.
From what Mark Levin said in his book, Liberty and Tyranny, Soc. Sec. was a deliberate attempt on part of FDR to get and keep Dem voters...Interesting comment by FDR at end...
David Limbaugh excerpts from Levin’s book: Just look at the history of Social Security, for one. In his explosive best-seller “Liberty and Tyranny,” Mark Levin details how FDR rejected the idea of direct welfare payments to the aged and unemployed because he believed it would result in Social Security’s being rolled back by taxpayers forced to fund it. In order to sink in his government hooks fully, he had to make sure that “even the lowest wage earner covered by the program (would) pay the same fixed payroll tax as the millionaire.” When criticized about the regressive nature of the payroll tax, FDR unapologetically said, “With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.”
http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-limbaugh/don-t-give-obamacare-a-life-raft.html
With all due respect, How does it differ, and can you give examples of governments?
Social security was, in essence, allowing the Federal government to take your money and do your retirement investment for you.
You gave your retirement money to the Government???
And you expected reasoned and prudent behavior from those to whom you gave your money????
Of course he did. They did it from Day 1.
2. In 1935 people never envisioned birth control pills and abortion. Since Roe vs. Wade, there have been 55 million abortions.
That's because back then the topic was sterilization which FDR was a big proponent of.
“How does SS differ from a Ponzi Scheme”.
The concept of assisting the elderly is entirely independent of how it is financed. We have a problem with the financing of our SS system. The current financing scheme is a Ponzi scheme except for one thing: future recipients have no contract with the government as to how much their pension will be.
Someone asked which other countries had assistance programs for the elderly. I don’t remember specifics but in a history book on Western Civilization, assistance to the needy was was a component in the evolution of systems of governing.
Obviously she couldn't have payed enough in to receive the benefit of investment, so she had to be getting it from the current involuntary donors.
Alms to the poor from the monarch is light years away from a universal check handout based on age.
And in case you hadn't noticed America was set up to do things a bit differently than they had in continental Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going.
I don’t think the contractual guarantee of return is a differentiating factor. A Ponzi scheme is also a pyramid scheme. It was started by FDR as a shrewd move to ensure democrat voters...it had nothing to do with taking care of the elderly.**
Sadly, just like other government social programs, the government has replaced family and local charities like churches from taking care of family and friends.
I am not happy with the fact that many 40 and 50-somethings are going to get the short end of the stick...having paid in for 20-30+ years. However, the reality is that it is a now merely another tax, and even if the government had not mismanaged the funds, the demographic math shows it would not have been sustainable.
IMHO It is criminal generational theft to continue this scheme. We cannot tax our children at 80%+ to pay for all these programs.
**Read Liberty and Tyranny - I posted about it today...
Oh, and countries...well I know Greece has had such a program...I don’t want to turn out like them.
I an going to edit my post and amend comment that Soc. Sec. had NOTHING to do with taking care of elderly...I am sure it did, but there was a very shrewd ulterior motive by FDR...get and keep dem voters...it was true start of the socialist march down the road on which we find ourselves.
This is shocking.
Even sycophantic liars need a shred of cred or what?
Rick Perry had the balls to say “the emperor has no clothes”. Now his opponents can either agree with him, or try to argue that the emperor does have clothes, when everyone can see he doesn’t.
“I don’t think the contractual guarantee of return is a differentiating factor”
You’re correct.
I’m not so cynical as to think Social Security was a mere shrewd move by FDR. It has been well accepted by Americans, whose only complaint now is that we’re told it’s gonna quit working. It won’t really quit working. As McCain said, we just need to tweak some knobs.
Americans like the idea of helping the needy. Doing it with the federal government sounds like a good idea, but now we see that the federal government has let us down.
I agree that it’s unfortunate that local charities and churches have been largely replaced federal government programs.
As far as 40 and 50-somethings getting screwed, they won’t be completely screwed. What we have here is citizens not paying attention to their government. A lot of grownup people have blindly thought someone else was taking care of them. The greatest sin of our politicians over the last 20 years has been their silence on America’s financial shape.
I agree with Palin, who said in her Iowa speech that an upper class of politicians, industry leaders, finance leaders and lawyers are raking in the big money, passing it around among themselves, giving a little to the poor class, and doing this with money from the middle class.
“I don’t think the contractual guarantee of return is a differentiating factor”
You’re correct.
I’m not so cynical as to think Social Security was a mere shrewd move by FDR. It has been well accepted by Americans, whose only complaint now is that we’re told it’s gonna quit working. It won’t really quit working. As McCain said, we just need to tweak some knobs.
Americans like the idea of helping the needy. Doing it with the federal government sounds like a good idea, but now we see that the federal government has let us down.
I agree that it’s unfortunate that local charities and churches have been largely replaced federal government programs.
As far as 40 and 50-somethings getting screwed, they won’t be completely screwed. What we have here is citizens not paying attention to their government. A lot of grownup people have blindly thought someone else was taking care of them. The greatest sin of our politicians over the last 20 years has been their silence on America’s financial shape.
I agree with Palin, who said in her Iowa speech that an upper class of politicians, industry leaders, finance leaders and lawyers are raking in the big money, passing it around among themselves, giving a little to the poor class, and doing this with money from the middle class.
Interesting how the Politicians are NOT PARTICIPATING in Social Security. I wonder if their system is in jeopardy
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