Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
marginalrevolution.com
Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#2[deleted]
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#3Or imagine if you have to pay your parents for care and education.
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#4Decrepit old people piling up unwanted turned out to be a bummer as well as a sanitation problem, so framed that way Social Security is more of a subsidized litter control program. Thinking practically about problems instead of putting perceived fairness first yields dramatically different analysis.
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#5Decrepit old people piling up unwanted turned out to be a bummer as well as a sanitation problem, so framed that way Social Security is more of a subsidized litter control program. Thinking practically about problems instead of putting perceived fairness first yields dramatically different analysis.
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Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#6[deleted]
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#7Or imagine if you have to pay your parents for care and education.
You are implying that Social Security actually is sustainable which it isn't. The payments that parents of tomorrow will get will be abysmal at best, so yes, their children will likely have to support them directly.
To me it points to deeper issues of the use of a fairly inflationary currency. There is no lasting governmental fix to be expected because governments inevitably always dilute their currency.
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#8Or imagine if you have to pay your parents for care and education.
You are implying that Social Security actually is sustainable which it isn't. The payments that parents of tomorrow will get will be abysmal at best, so yes, their children will likely have to support them directly. To me it points to deeper issues of the use of a fairly inflationary currency. There is no lasting governmental fix to be expected because governments inevitably always dilute their currency.
You are stating that Social Security isn’t sustainable, when in fact its sustainability depends in its entirety on demographic trends, workforce behaviors, and market conditions that cannot be accurately predicted.
The imminent collapse of Social Security has been just ahead of us for roughly as long as fusion energy and flying cars have been… while I agree it’s unstable, it’s been sustainable thus far and the imminent tipping point keeps being slightly further off than predicted by everyone with an opinion.
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are implying that Social Security actually is sustainable which it isn't. The payments that parents of tomorrow will get will be abysmal at best, so yes, their children will likely have to support them directly. To me it points to deeper issues of the use of a fairly inflationary currency. There is no lasting governmental fix to be expected because governments inevitably always dilute their currency.
You are stating that Social Security isn’t sustainable, when in fact its sustainability depends in its entirety on demographic trends, workforce behaviors, and market conditions that cannot be accurately predicted. The imminent collapse of Social Security has been just ahead of us for roughly as long as fusion energy and flying cars have been… while I agree it’s unstable , it’s been sustainable thus far and the immin…
So, it sounds as though the recommendation is to carry on until the collision with Stein's Law?
Re: Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are stating that Social Security isn’t sustainable, when in fact its sustainability depends in its entirety on demographic trends, workforce behaviors, and market conditions that cannot be accurately predicted. The imminent collapse of Social Security has been just ahead of us for roughly as long as fusion energy and flying cars have been… while I agree it’s unstable , it’s been sustainable thus far and the immin…
So, it sounds as though the recommendation is to carry on until the collision with Stein's Law? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Stein
Stein was an economist, and effectively nothing that an economist states can ever result in anything reliable enough to be called a (capital L) Law.
In this case, Stein’s Not-Very-Well-Reasoned-Aphorism conflicts with the Halting Problem, which has formally proven that it’s impossible to know if any given computational process halts once it’s begun.
Social Security is, inherently, a computational process. Moreover, it’s a process the source code of which can be changed (and has been changed) during its runtime… we can’t assume it’s unsustainable except given other conditions that are all three of dynamic, stochastic, and unpredictable.