The Truth About Social Security
18th August 2015
Eighty years ago this month (on August 14th, 1935, to be precise), Uncle Sam foisted on its subjects a scheme that would make Charles Ponzi green with envy. And to help hide the hideous nature of this spending-other-people’s-money fraud, Uncle Sam maintains a scam called the “Social Security Trust Fund” – which is simply I.O.U.s written by the government to itself.
August 18th, 2015 at 07:50
Wait! There’s no Lock-Box?!? But Al Gore said there was a lock box! I feel so…betrayed!!
August 18th, 2015 at 11:45
*sigh* The continued misunderstanding (willful?) of people regarding the nature and purpose of Social Security is a mystery.
I wish they’d just call it what it is, like they do in Canada: Social Insurance.
Social Security is an insurance policy against your being destitute and dying on the streets, leaving your ugly emaciated carcass to be disposed of by your friends and neighbors. It is not, and was never intended to be, a “retirement program” to keep you in the lifestyle to which you wish you had the opportunity to become accustomed.
None of which is to say that the government hasn’t woefully misused, misappropriated, and otherwise mismanaged the money. But that’s Old News.
“Privatizing” it won’t change its nature; it will just be administered by some insurance company instead of the government, and if the past is any guide (“Buy Whole Life–it’s not insurance, it’s an investment–it just happens to have a death benefit attached. Bonus!”) then nothing will change. Except the insurance company might go out of business, which the government won’t.