Talkin Social Security

[John K. Taber]

Paul Henry Rosenberg wrote:
> 
> John K. Taber wrote:
> 
> > Paul, I need your Ponzi explanation. Please zip it to me at
> > jktaber at onramp.net.
> 
> Heck, in bare-bones I can put it into a single short paragraph:
> 
> A Ponzi scheme is (a) a fradulent "investment" scheme which (b) takes
> people's money under the pretence of investing it and (c) uses other
> people's "investment" money to pay "interest" (d) that keeps people
> hooked and encourages them to "invest" more (e) and never delivers what
> it promises. NONE of this is true of Social Security.
> 
> You can then go into as much detail as needed to flesh things out.  At
> bottom, the "ponzi scheme" argument is treating SS as a fraudulent
> investment scheme -- which it NEVER claims to be, rather than the
> insurance system it is.  Thus, it's an informal example of a straw man
> argument, arguing against SS as something it doesn't claim to be.
> 
> Which leads into
> 
> > By the way, Louis, your pointer to the logical fallacies at nizkor
> > is a big help.
> 
> I use and refer folks to the Nizkor Fallacies pages all the time.  There
> are a few other sites around that cover a few fallacies that Nizkor
> missess, but there's hardly ever a need to refer to them. The real
> problems come from rightwingers' tendencies to use multiple fallacies
> simultaneously -- it's a real mess trying to untangle them all.
> 
> > I used to use the SSA's explanation in their Myths section, but
> > the SSA has removed it, and have told me they have no firm plans
> > to restore it. They covered a bunch of anti-SS myths.
> >
> > Naturally, my paranoia starts up, and I suspect that somehow the
> > SSA was ordered to remove them.
> >
> > So, I need yours. I wasn't smart enough to squirrel the SSA's away.
> 
> Perhaps Max or someone else can point us to some similar online
> resource?  I've found bits and pieces of such info here & there, but
> would love to know about a concise central document.
> 
> p.s. The "ponzi scheme" argument is often accompanied by the rightwing
> crie de couer, "It would be illegal if anyone except the government did
> it!"  To which I respond, "So is printing money."
> 
> --
> Paul Rosenberg
> Reason and Democracy
> rad at gte.net
> 
> "Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"

I'm squirreling your explanation away. I've found auto insurance to
be a good riposte to the rightwing pitch that social security provides
too low a return. And, auto insurance is compulsory. So far, it seems
to shut em up. In office arguments I have suggested years ago that auto 
insurance be voluntary. The rightwingers look at me aghast. These
are the same ones who whine that social security is compulsory. So this
analogy works good.

The SSA Myth had a diagram which shows pay-as-you-go as an inline 
string of connected boxes, generation g, g+1, g+2, ....,g+n. A box
might be smaller or larger presenting a smaller or larger burden on
its successor generation.

In contrast, the diagram of a Ponzi scheme showed a tree arrangement
of boxes. In short, a geometric progression instead of a linear
progression.

I found it effective for my audience because they could not argue
with the implied math, even though I guess it was simplified math.

But what really helped was the authority. If I say a Ponzi scheme
depends on a geometric progression, somebody is going to say "no it
doesn't." They simply deny what they don't like, unless it comes from
an authority that is difficult for them to deal with. I don't know
how to get out of the no it doesn't/yes it does impasse.

-- 
I've been able to string more words into fewer ideas than anybody I
know, and I'm continuing to do that.

     - Alan Greenspan to the Senate Budget Committee, Sept 23, 1998