The Government Ponzi scheme

Bernie Madoff was just sentenced to 150 years for the multi billion dollar ponzi scheme that he put together that finally hit the wall. As a result thousands of people lost their life savings. A terrible crime! Bernie apologized to his investors and said they he didn't mean to hurt anyone and that things just got out of hand!

A successful Ponzi scheme is one where early investors are paid with money from new investors. As long as the scammer can continue to sign up new investors, the cycle never ends.

Social security is a great example of a "legal Ponzi scheme". Every time you're paid for work, the government takes a portion of your money to "invest" in the Social Security Trust Fund, where it is supposed to sit, collect interest, until you retire and are eligible to start receiving Social Security checks. Now, our Social Security Trust fund is full of IOUs. Congress has taken our money, promised us it was safe, and then they have SPENT it on millions of "pork" projects and entitlements that social security was not supposed to fund.

Common sense tells us that there is no difference between what Bernie Madoff did and what our government has done. While Madoff goes to jail, our politicians go to a Hawaiian luau at the White House!

Now the Social Security Trust Fund has a massive future liability funding shortfall of around $13.6 Trillion! In other words, politicians have promised to pay $13.6 Trillion, that the Trust doesn't have, to future retirees. Now, millions of baby boomers are beginning to retire and collect Social Security. New payments made by younger workers are being used to pay older retirees. What will happen when the amount of money paid out to retired people exceeds the amount of money taken in from younger workers? This is beginning to happen with so many baby boomers reaching retirement age and our job market shrinking.

In a few words, this is the mess our government has made of Social Security. What are our politicians doing about it? They are SPENDING MORE MONEY on more pork projects and more entitlements, and making promises that they can't keep. At some point their legal Ponzi scheme will hit the wall also. What will happen to people who depend on Social Security to survive? Our children and grandchildren cannot rely on Social Security and will have to pay the shortfall, created by government, by all kinds of increased taxation.

Why do we entrust our future welfare to our government? Why do we let them continue to spend our money irresponsibly? Why do we think they can manage these huge governmental programs any better than they have handled Social Security? Think about it as you listen to all the promises being made by politicians today.