"Gil Faver" <rowdy'sboss[at]xxyz.com> wrote:

- quote -

Yeah, and if the corner candy store did their accounting the same way as the
Federal Government, Mom and Pop would be in jail, too.

But we have been running surpluses on Social Security for decades. This was in
preparation for the deficits that demographics made inevitable. Those surpluses
have been invested the safest securities in the world -- US Treasury Bonds. So
far, no problem. Insurance companies do exactly the same thing.

The problem comes in the scale. When an insurance company redeems some Treasury
bonds, even a lot of Treasury bonds, the Treasury hardly notices. When Social
Security starts redeeming its bonds, the Treasury is either going to have to
find a way to raise a lot of money --- tax, borrow elsewhere, or cut spending
elsewhere. Financing that and current deficits is going to be interesting.

-- Doug

"Gil Faver" <rowdy'sb...[at]xxyz.com> wrote:
- quote -

Do you dispute that population demographics wax and wither? That
eventually, for one, the baby boom generation will die out and the SS
budget yada will again be in the black?

<honda.lioness[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:d22e5082-b1c3-4e71-9267-a91063919692[at]r37g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

if an insurance company set up a program like Social Security, they would be
locked up and the key thrown away.

Beliavsky <beliav...[at]aol.com> wrote:
- quote -

?

The Social Security program's income and expenses depend on the
population demographics. These demographics wax and wither. By
contrast a Ponzi scheme's base only expands.

Calling SS a Ponzi scheme is like calling an insurance company a Ponzi
scheme just because it hit a rough patch of multiple hurricanes.

Time Magazine, April 9, 2009
by Justin Fox
http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...890542,00.html

Federal-budget worrywarts (myself included) have been fretting for
years about the arrival of the Dread Fiscal Year 2017, when Social
Security was projected to start becoming a drag on federal finances.

Well, no need to worry about 2017 anymore. Thanks to the worst
economic downturn since the 1930s, the moment of reckoning is already
almost here: according to both the budget proposed by the White House
in February and projections issued by the Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) in March, Social Security benefits ($659 billion, according to
the CBO) will exceed payroll taxes ($653 billion) in fiscal 2009 for
the first time since 1984. Payroll-tax receipts generally hold up much
better in recessions than do income taxes, but job losses have been so
severe that the CBO expects them to decline slightly from 2008, while
benefits rise almost 9% because of cost-of-living adjustments and the
beginnings of the baby-boomer retirement wave.

If you count the $17 billion in income taxes expected to be paid on
Social Security benefits, the system will still manage to provide a
slight surplus for federal coffers in fiscal 2009. But from 2010
through 2012, there are small projected deficits, and after heading
back into the black from 2013 to 2015, the program will then become a
growing drain on federal finances, projects the CBO.

<rest of article at link
Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme.