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Here you go...check out this thread

"Well, it is true that workers today pay 6.2% of their earnings (up to an earnings limit of $72,600) and the employer pays the 6.2% as well. Yes, that adds up to 12.4% in payroll taxes. (Self employed pay 15%.) But as economists often say, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." That 6.2% "mandated benefit" is not free; it forces employers to reduce workers' market- determined salaries or fringe benefits. Otherwise, the mandated cost would inflict losses on employers, causing unemployment. In other words, mandated benefits simply replace market- determined benefits and/or monetary compensation. Economically this means that workers, in fact, pay the full 12.4%. The bottom line is don't be fooled: It's your money the employer is sending to Washington, D.C.

More importantly, Americans do not have a legal right to these taxes. In 1960 in Flemming vs. Nestor, Mr. Nestor sued the Federal government claiming he had a right to collect Social Security benefits since he had paid his Social Security "contributions." The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he, and all workers, have no such property right. "I paid in, I contributed, and therefore I deserve my benefits," is, therefore, a common mis-belief among Americans. Congress can change, as the current debate reveals, any and all criteria as to benefit amounts, tax rates, retirement age, etc. They can cut or eliminate benefits regardless of workers' so-called "contributions."

Superficially, Social Security appears to be just a government pension plan for the elderly. Rather, it is a pyramid or Ponsi scheme. It is not based on sound principles of insurance. Private insurance companies invest the premiums of their customers in stocks and bonds and other income-producing assets. Real wealth is created. Later, the earnings from that wealth is used to pay annuities or pensions. But Social Security is not a savings-and-investment program. Social Security taxes (premiums?) create no wealth. The payroll taxes are not invested, but are used to pay current retirees and survivors under the program. It's called a pay-as-you-go system. Some call it an intergenerational income-transfer program. It is indeed! Now understand this, please. A pyramid or Ponsi scheme (illegal in all 50 states) works under the unsound and unethical principle that early investors are paid handsome returns with cash taken from later investors. As long as more and more investors (suckers) are attracted, the scheme works and appears to be successful. Eventually, however, the system collapses with the inevitable decrease in the number of new investors. In like manner, Social Security seemed to work well in the early years when there where few eligible retirees and lots of workers. A person retiring in 1940 could get an inflation-adjusted return of 135%!! But as the ratio of workers to retirees has declined over the decades, so has the average expected return, now 4% in 1999. A minus return is a distinct possibility in the near future. One wonders what Mr. Ponsi would have thought about Social Security "stealing" his idea.