Social security( a misnomer) is a government Ponzi scheme. Madoff was a commercial Ponzi scheme. A government Ponzi scheme discloses how they will screw you and then makes you buy into it. A commercial Ponzi scheme misleads you but no one forces you to buy into it.
Which is fine, I just want all my money back that I paid in to SSN. I want all lost wages that I could have made but my employer(s) had to pay for unemployment. I also want my taxes lowered that had/have to cover the welfare stuff. Got no problem at all...soon as I get my check.
You are free to. However, you are not using the standard definition of "ponzi", which does not have any perception or knowledge components. A Ponzi is simply any scheme that generates profits for earlier participants by the skimming the proceeds from later participants. Whether anybody involved knows what is going on or not is irrelevant to the definition, although it may certainly imply the level of fraud involved. Cheers.
Apparently what you consider "the standard definition" is not held by everyone; your definition omits fraud which is a key component. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp?viewed=1 http://www.answers.com/topic/ponzi-scheme SS satisfies neither definition.
If Bush hadn't squandered so much money on the phoney war he started in Iraq, why should it be such an issue? The guy didn't even get the clearance from U.N. but he makes charges against Russia in front of the world body when it invades Georgia. One thing for sure about us Americans is that we love double-standard. The cost of the bailouts was 2-8 trillion in 3 months, the war was a trillion in 6 years. Bailouts and social welfare make wars seem like mere earmarks.
Be careful looking too hard. Chances are YOUR lifestyle is financed by some kind of scam somewhere. Should equilibrium be restored, you may wind up back where your ancestors lived, under the bridge or in an Appalachian shanty.
It does. Just because it is not high returns nor secretive it is still a Ponzi, where early birds get the goods and latecomers get screwed. A Ponzi usually collapses when there are no more newcomers to the system. Since the US population is getting older and less workers are paying into the system and more retirees are taking out the money, the system can not be sustained.