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.

Comments

[squarooticus]

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]

More Social Security bashing? Can't you guys come up with something new to make up lies about?

[P Brooks]

Varvel sucks so hard, I'm surprised he isn't a Friday Funnies regular.

[Lamar]

Reminds me of the Jan. 2 Friday Funnies.

[LurkerBold]

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]

What's this copyno shit? Any asshole with a print screen key and Paint can get around it.

[Libertymike]

LurkerBold-

The truth hurts, yes?

[MikeP]

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]

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?

[R C Dean]

Why do you want old people to starve?

Because their tears are so, so sweet, and their piteous cries are music to my ears.

[MikeP]

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.

[Pro Libertate]

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.

[Mo]

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]

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]

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]

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?

[Pro Libertate]

It's the "security" part that bothers me. If the government simply must steal our money, can't it give us a better return?

[Lamar]

"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]

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.

[Pro Libertate]

It's the security part that offends me and Lamar.

[MNG]

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]

"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]

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!

[MikeP]

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]

Nobody would need more than minimum wage if it were set right and the rich would stop hoarding everything.

[Nigel Watt]

MikeP, yes, I'd greatly appreciate not paying that.

[P Brooks]

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.

[P Brooks]

Farly, fairly- whatever.

Prices, too.

[Episiarch]

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."

[Warty]

Epi, mmmmm...cochinita larga pibil. Watch out for Agent Sands.

[Episiarch]

I'll let NutraSweet cook it, Warty.

[Gilbert Martin]

"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]

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]

$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.

[SugarFree]

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]

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]

>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

[Sam Grove]

Social Security is an investment program and that is what is wrong with it.

OK, what are SS funds invested in?

[Pro Libertate]

America, Sam. America.

[P Brooks]

OK, what are SS funds invested in?

Tulips.