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So Where Exactly Did Madoff Get the Idea to Pay Off Early Investors With Money From Later Investors?
The answer, deftly rendered in cartoon form and which I can't show due to copyright restrictions, may surprise you. But probably not, if you read the website or watch Reason.tv.
Hat tip: Veronique de Rugy.
squarooticus|1.5.09 @ 10:14AM|#
I don't find this funny, but that's because Social Security is always my first thought whenever I hear about a Ponzi scheme.
LurkerBold|1.5.09 @ 10:20AM|#
More Social Security bashing? Can't you guys come up with something new to make up lies about?
LurkerBold|1.5.09 @ 10:39AM|#
Lamar,
Reason is recycling news? Perhaps they will get on board with the
fair recycling programs promoted by local governments and promote
them to Federal level?
Warty|1.5.09 @ 10:39AM|#
What's this copyno shit? Any asshole with a print screen key and Paint can get around it.
|1.5.09 @ 10:42AM|#
In this case the truth, rendered in the loving
detail of a WPA mural by the SSA itself, is far, far too
good...
On January 31, 1940, the first monthly retirement check was issued to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, in the amount of $22.54. Miss Fuller, a Legal Secretary, retired in November 1939. She started collecting benefits in January 1940 at age 65 and lived to be 100 years old, dying in 1975.
Ida May Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program. The accumulated taxes on her salary during those three years was a total of $24.75. Her initial monthly check was $22.54. During her lifetime she collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.
LurkerBold|1.5.09 @ 10:48AM|#
MikeP,
$22,888.92 is not a lot of money to live on. Why do you want old
people to starve?
Libertymike,
Why would pointing out the Reason needs to promote recycling more
hurt anybody?
|1.5.09 @ 10:50AM|#
Why do you want old people to starve?
Because their tears are so, so sweet, and their piteous cries are
music to my ears.
|1.5.09 @ 10:52AM|#
I want old people who have no money to get relief from
government the same way young people who have no money get relief
from government.
But since old people as an age cohort are the wealthiest cohort in
the country, I wonder why you want to tax 18 year old janitors and
send their earnings to millionaire retirees in yacht clubs.
|1.5.09 @ 10:52AM|#
My mom gets social security now. If it pays her back until she's 130, then she'll have gotten a good return on her "investment". Good thing she's not depending solely on that income to live.
|1.5.09 @ 10:52AM|#
The main problem with Social Security is that it bills itself as
an investment program, when it's actually an old age welfare
program*. A far better system would be to end the regressive
payroll tax, roll it into the general tax fund and simply call a
spade a spade. It would still be impossible to kill because the
elderly vote in overwhelming numbers.
* I have beefs about this, but I don't have a huge problem with a
safety net for the elderly.
Warty|1.5.09 @ 10:54AM|#
I don't want old people to starve, heavens no. That's why I'm busy constructing high-density feedlots. The next step is to train a few Judas geezers.
Bingo|1.5.09 @ 10:55AM|#
Social Security is sustainable as long as we can eat the old
people when they die. When they start receiving checks they do so
under the condition that they will fatten themselves up and develop
their bodies to contain the choicest cuts of meat.
They will be like the Kobe beef cows, fed and massaged and living
the good life. Only we get to eat them.
LurkerBold|1.5.09 @ 10:56AM|#
If we had true equality then we would not need Social
Security.
Is the Social part of it the word that scares you people so
much?
|1.5.09 @ 10:58AM|#
It's the "security" part that bothers me. If the government simply must steal our money, can't it give us a better return?
|1.5.09 @ 10:59AM|#
"Is the Social part of it the word that scares you people so
much?"
Nope. It's the "Security" part of it. Makes it sound like it's run
by mall rent-a-cops.
Warty|1.5.09 @ 11:02AM|#
Bingo, perhaps we ought to go into business. I get 75% of the
profits on account of being one minute faster.
After we train the Judas geezers, the next step is to hire the
Rev. Horton
Heat to write us a little jingle.
MNG|1.5.09 @ 11:07AM|#
MikeP
That's a little misleading isn't it?
Old people as a whole may have a higher average of wealth (that
would make some sense since they have had more time to accumulate
stuff), but they often don't have much income coming in nor future
chances for it like the 18 year old janitor does.
Just saying.
MNG|1.5.09 @ 11:08AM|#
"That's why I'm busy constructing high-density feedlots. The
next step is to train a few Judas geezers."
Can't you just put Matlock on 24/7 on a big screen tv and lure them
in?
ed|1.5.09 @ 11:09AM|#
Poor Bernie. He is portrayed as a befuddled old man, mercilessly
grilled by the bad old cops.
He couldn't help it! He's old!
|1.5.09 @ 11:16AM|#
MNG,
You have a fair point about relative earning potentials. In fact,
most economists would tell you that an 18 year old shouldn't be
saving at all, but should be investing his surplus income into his
own future earnings potential.
Boy would that 12% he's forced to send to the richest cohort be
useful...
LurkerBold|1.5.09 @ 11:18AM|#
Nobody would need more than minimum wage if it were set right and the rich would stop hoarding everything.
|1.5.09 @ 11:26AM|#
Say! What if the government takes over the means of production,
and decides what each factory should make. They can set wages
farly, so everybody gets the same. That would totally eliminate
inequality.
Of course those decisions are hard, and the people who make them
should be compensated commensurately.
|1.5.09 @ 11:33AM|#
Social Security is sustainable as long as we can eat the old
people when they die.
I guess you like your long pig tough and chewy. I prefer video game
playing children. Long pig veal, as it were.
"We won't kill indiscriminately. No...selectively. We don't want to
break up families."
Gilbert Martin|1.5.09 @ 12:14PM|#
"The main problem with Social Security is that it bills itself
as an investment program, when it's actually an old age welfare
program*."
That's the significant economic problem with it.
However the real "main" problem is that the whole thing is
unconstitutional to begin with.
It is not pursuant to any ennumerated power delegated to the
federal government in the text of the Constitution as is required
by the 10th Amendment.
LurkerBold|1.5.09 @ 12:22PM|#
Social Security is an investment program and that is what is wrong with it. We should be sharing the wealth equitably instead of enriching the already rich.
cunnivore|1.5.09 @ 12:40PM|#
$22,888.92 is not a lot of money to live on.
It sure was in 1940. I'd like to see an inflation-adjusted number
for that.
|1.5.09 @ 12:48PM|#
cunny,
$338,249.73, using the Consumer Price Index, in 1940 dollars and
$88,143.46 in 1975 dollars.
She made about $4000 adjusted her first 12 months of drawing.
Anybody know her monthly payment in 1975?
http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/
Reformed Republican|1.5.09 @ 1:14PM|#
Old people as a whole may have a higher average of wealth
(that would make some sense since they have had more time to
accumulate stuff), but they often don't have much income coming in
nor future chances for it like the 18 year old janitor
does.
So they can liquidate some of that wealth. They do not need to take
from me.
lagomorph|1.5.09 @ 1:31PM|#
>What's this copyno shit? Any asshole with a print screen key
and Paint can get around it.
That's not even necessary. The "security" of this depends on your
browser which is completely under your control. It's a pretty
stupid idea.
http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/properties/varvel/art_images/cg494b9c01068e40.jpg
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