max keiser: US Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme like Madoff

[maxkeiser]

Run time: 04:42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rZiwtNtqxU   Posted on YouTube: December 18, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 22, 2008 By DU Member: maxkeiser Views on DU: 1143

 
BBC World News Press Office

Media Centre, 201 Wood Lane, London, W12 7TQ


BBC World News to launch entertainment news programme, The Oracle

London, 22 December 2008. BBC World News is launching a new weekly programme, The Oracle, which provides viewers with an entertaining look ahead at the news.

The programme will air on the BBC’s 24-hour international news channel from 9 January 2009. Hosted by Max Keiser, creator of the entertainment prediction market Hollywood Stock Exchange, The Oracle will feature celebrity and expert guests who will join Max to try to predict future headlines.

Former Wall Street trader, Max Keiser says: “It’s all in the markets somewhere. The money guys are in-the-know, why shouldn’t everyone else be?”

Paul Gibbs, Head of Programmes, BBC World News says: “Max Keiser is passionate about his subject. Every week he’ll be bringing BBC World News’ viewers a satirical and compelling look at news events.”

Presented from Paris, the first episodes will focus on the global economic downturn. The guest panel includes French economist and former presidential adviser Jacques Attali, British comedienne Carrie Quinlan - who is a regular on BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz - and Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin.


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[Skink]

1. There is and was plenty of money that is being illegally appropriated,

[dmallind]

2. Well in a way sure

It does indeed work exactly the same way - new payers cover the returns for earlier payers.

But unlike the regular kind, there is a steady source of new payers by law, andyou can't withdraw when you want. Ponzi schemes only fail when no new investors can be found and too many older investors want to withdraw. Both are controlled in SS.

[maxkeiser]

5. but there is ...

nothing is in the fund but IOU's from the Fed. gov't - that they will never be able to pay once the bulge bracket boomers overwhelm the system; an event that looks to happen in the next ten years. there is no actually money in the fund. it's just a bookkeeping entry.

[Patchuli]

9. "bulge bracket boomers?"

WTF does that mean exactly. If you are talking about my generation, born after WW2, you forget we've paid in a hell of a lot and there is money in SS. There has been money stolen (by Reagan, et al.) but it is not broke so please lose the RW talking points which is nothing more, as the poster below states than a way to scare young people out of supporting SS. We boomers have paid in extra since the 80s to balance the amount of our generation as well. This was earned. This is not an entitlement.

[Skink]

10. Exactly but Madoff was also creating phony returns.

[Uben]

3. I stopped paying SSI nine yrs ago

....when I retired at age 45, after paying in to it for 30 yrs. I'll never see a dime of the 30K I put into it, and do not plan on drawing any benefits from it since I am financially secure. I think everyone who has a savings of $1 million or more when they reach age 65 should not draw benefits from it. We have too many citizens who need it more. I know there will be those who say they paid in so they will draw benefits. Well, what can you say? Greed rules.

[Lasher]

4. Old rightwing talking points.

'There's nothing in the SS Trust Fund but worthless pieces of paper, blah blah.'

This line is intended to get young people to believe they'll get nothing when their time comes, so that they will buy into the GOP obsession to 'save' SS by destroying it.

Don't be a fool. The average American never had a better thing going for them than Social Security.

Ten myths about Social Security

Spearing the Beast

"My goal is to cut government (US social programs) in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." - Grover Norquist

[maxkeiser]

6. it's not there

Huh? right wing talking points? that's like saying that to argue Madoff was a fraud is to buy into right wing talking points... there is no money in SS; it's a ponzi scheme. wishing it were were not so does make it so... which is not to say that i support any attempt to 'reform' SS. there is nothing there to reform. the gov't 'borrowed' againt the SS, all 50 trillion of it.. and lots it all bailing out insolvent banks and fighting unwinable wars...

[Lasher]

7. I see you didn't bother with the links I furnished.

Here, let me help you:

Myth #3: Social Security's trust funds are filled with worthless IOUs.

When investors become worried about the economy and the stock market, they "flee to safety" by selling their other securities in exchange for U.S. Treasury bonds and bills. Backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, U.S. Treasury securities are considered to be the safest, most reliable investment worldwide. Because the federal government is legally obligated to pay back interest and principal on those securities, it would take an almost unimaginable calamity for a default to occur. Social Security's trust funds, which now (January 2005) amount to $1.5 trillion and are expected to grow to $5.3 trillion by 2018, hold nothing but U.S. Treasury securities.

Alan Greenspan, now the Federal Reserve chairman, led a bipartisan commission in 1983 that recommended changes to Social Security explicitly to produce the large trust funds that the system will draw on to pay for the baby boom generation's retirement from roughly 2008 to 2030. Those reforms, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, were widely hailed at the time by both parties as a model of effective government. If anything, those reforms have turned out to be even more successful than originally imagined, as the improved forecasts in recent years for the program demonstrate. The central reason for that success was the Greenspan Commission's idea of building up trust funds invested in safe U.S. Treasury securities.

http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=507

What about the Federal Pension Trust Fund? It's just the same—all $800 billion of it. You mean there are no military pensions? What about the $280 billion in Medicare Trusts—are those fake? And, the highway trust and all other government trusts? $3.1 trillion all told.

And what's their problem with "paper"? A thousand dollar bill is paper, the check I write, my stock certificate, my government bond—all paper. Did they expect the trust would be made of diamonds?

What of the millions of Americans who own Treasury bonds, all paper? Seven trillion dollars of national debt has been spent on government programs, and there is "nothing left." Has the US of A defrauded the world of $7 trillion?

When you put money in the bank you get paper, and they lend your money to someone who spends it. Your cash does not stay in the bank.

http://zfacts.com/p/336.html

Like I said, old rightwing talking points. Looks like you got sucked right in.

[maxkeiser]

12. are you agreeing or refuting.. impossible to tell which based on your links

toilet paper is also paper... which is what you will be getting as the US dollar continues it's epic dive to zero. SS will be met with more counterfeit dollars; more ponzi scheme nonsense... your post seems to be proving my point not refuting it...

[Lasher]

15. The gates are down, the lights are flashing but the train isn't coming.

I see you have chosen to employ to the Broken Record Gambit. And well played, sir. Well played!

[izquierdista]

8. Damn! It must be true!

It says Paris in the background and there's the Eiffel tower! It says 'financial expert' in the lower right corner so it must be true!

Spare me your bullshit, asshole. :puke: But I can understand how a Republi-CON can't tell the difference between a Ponzi scheme and an actuary designed pension benefit.

[maxkeiser]

13. are you agreeing with me, refuting me, or just plain confused..

there is no money in SS... sure the gov't can continue to print more dollars as the value of dollars drops to zero... do you understand that part of the ponzi scheme? if not, I have some shares in a bernie madoff fund i'd like to sell you...

[izquierdista]

16. YOU are confused

Social Security doesn't need to have money in it for it to work. It's only set up like it is because it is the only way Roosevelt could sell the scheme without big money capitalists overthrowing the government (and they were plotting to). It is NOT an investment, NOT a Ponzi scheme, NOT some type of insurance, it is a redistribution of income from the working classes to the retired and disabled. At 15.3% of wages, it supports a certain number of retirees and disabled. If it went down to 12%, benefit levels would have to be cut; if it went up to 20%, people could retire earlier.

The fact that collections have outweighed disbursements for a number of years may con people into thinking it is an investment (including those in Congress), and they apply all the mathematics of finance to analyze it, but that is what confuses the issue. It would be a lot simpler if it was recognized for what it is -- socialized wealth distribution. But in Calvinist America, where everyone and everything has to pay its own way, that is not allowed; the retired have to be collecting income on an investment they paid into, and the disabled have to be collecting insurance payments to mitigate a loss of capital (i.e., the value of the job that they lost).

Now that the age distribution of the population has changed, and disbursements will outweigh collections, the capitalists are throwing a shit-fit because in their model, this is a money-losing business. Rather than have a team of actuaries recalculate benefit levels or tax rates on a periodic basis, the government has been engaged in Enron style accounting for years. They have to contort the figures to explain the status of the system, but like mapping the sphere onto the plane, they keep tripping over the singularities in the mapping. When it is pointed out that the accounting is logically inconsistent, the discussion inevitably gets bogged down in minutia, when returning to the socialist model is what is called for: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

[maxkeiser]

14. quick look at track record - know the odds before placing your bets

i might be wrong about the absense of any funds in the SS fund.. but there is not evidence to suggest that the system will be paying out anything in a any real sense... so I can add this to the following predicitons I've already made;

you can choose to believe in the tooth fairy of america's SS system... hope is a great thing to have, especially in a depression, but it has limits...

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A new Great Depression - Aljazeera English "Rigged Markets" - May 2007

Iceland collapse - Aljazeera English "Money Geyser" - August 2007

Run on the global banking system - France 24 - September 2007

Bradford & Bingley to collapse - Resonance 104.4 fm - April 2005

At least a doubling in price of gold - Resonance 104.4 fm - January 2005

PFI deals will suffer if credit becomes tight - Aljazeera English "Private finance or public swindle?"- March 2008

Unwinding of the yen carry trade - Aljazeera English - "Money Geyser" - August 2007

That collateralized debt obligations would 'explode' and wreak havoc on financial system - Aljazeera English, "Focus on Locusts" - May 2007

That Sovereign Wealth Funds would be called on for funds from Western nations - Aljazeera English "Death of the Dollar" - December 2007

[mikita]

11. thanks Max.... n/t