The national Ponzi scheme 133

Here’s a point of view we heartily endorse.

From a column at PajamasMedia by Kyle-Anne Shiver:

According to the commentariat, Governor Rick Perry has stepped into a pile of electoral cow manure. Perry had the unrivaled gall to tell the truth about Social Security — that the program is, by design, a Ponzi scheme.

Personally, I’d like to give Rick Perry a medal for courage and a laurel wreath for leadership. He has signaled his intention to speak truth boldly in terms real people can understand.

Of course, Social Security is essentially a Ponzi scheme, fully dependent upon adequate numbers of new “investors” (workers) to pay off prior “investors” (retirees). But this week, Reason delineated three major Social Security facts that make it far worse than a Ponzi scheme, and audaciously added that Rick Perry was “soft-pedaling” his rhetoric on the subject. From Reason:

One, a Ponzi scheme collects money from new investors and uses it to pay previous investors — minus a fee. But Social Security collects money from new investors, uses some of it to pay previous investors, and spends the surplus on programs for politically favored groups — minus the cost of supporting a massive bureaucracy. Over the years, trillions of dollars have been spent on these groups and bureaucrats.

Two, participation in Ponzi schemes is voluntary. Not so with Social Security. The government automatically withholds payroll taxes and “invests” them for you.

Three: When a Ponzi scheme can’t con new investors in sufficient numbers to pay the previous investors, it collapses. But when Social Security runs low on investors — also called poor working stiffs — it raises taxes.”

When Rick Perry has the gumption to responsibly point this out in public, we ought to be sending the guy thank you notes for clarity and leadership. …

Rick Perry ought to be considered a one-man Reformation truth-squad every time he utters the phrase “Ponzi scheme” to foaming-at-the-mouth liberal pontificators.

Charles Krauthammer is also a Social Security truth-teller. In March, he wrote of Lew’s duplicitous attempt to shore up Obama’s Social Security propaganda, spelling out the Reformation’s argument in demographic enlightenment format:

But demography is destiny. The ratio of workers to retirees is shrinking year by year. Instead of Social Security producing annual surpluses that reduce the federal deficit, it is now producing shortfalls that increase the federal deficit — $37 billion in 2010. It will only get worse as the baby boomers retire.” …

Choices have consequences. And the millions of Americans’ choices not to bear many children, coupled with irresponsible political choices to raid the Social Security trust fund, have rendered “the greatest Ponzi scheme ever devised” just one more bitter fruit in the diminishing Keynesian economist’s orchard.

The fertility-rate in the US is 2.1, the rate necessary for population stability. Demographically, Europe is in a far worse condition. Every European country has a diminishing fertility-rate. And every European country is a welfare state – ie a socialist state. Socialism itself is a Ponzi scheme. It cannot work, it does not work.

Footnote: Of course we deplore Rick Perry’s belief in creationism. But there is no GOP candidate who does not claim to believe in a creator god. Romney and Huntsman are Mormons. Bachmann is a Lutheran. Santorum and Gingrich are Catholics. Paul and Cain are Baptists. It will be a long time yet before the United States has a self-declared atheist president.