If I may interject, I'm pretty sure that EastWestGal knows what a Ponzi scheme is. I'm also betting that the person who made that statement does too. But it's a good way to get the common people riled up about the issue. Sort of like calling everything you don't like "socialism".
No one is complaining about 'making sure the book work is correct.' We're complaining because DOGE has totally mischaracterized how many (dead) people are getting SS benefits - and they know it or should before deliberately alarming the general population. The SSA has known all along about the former beneficiaries in the system, and very few of them if any were getting SS benefits. DOGE is just trying to destroy confidence in SSA, some people are falling right into the grossly exaggerated nonsense...
DOGE has fired the people who actually were investigating fraud, and by all accounts, these investigators did a very good job. Virtually everything which DOGE has claimed has been found to be either utterly false, wildly exaggerated, or has not been substantiated with hard evidence.
That's how it works for normal people, yes.
So you're saying there is no waste or fraud in government to be found.... ok...
DOGE doesn't have the knowledge to find the waste or fraud or abuse if they're unfamiliar with a system....trust me. I was a computer programmer for decades. You can't bring in techies that don't know a system and pretend to find waste, fraud or abuse in days or weeks....it sometimes takes months to go through systems to analyze them. Those systems already had people looking for fraud and abuse and you think DOGE can waltz in and find it in a few days or a week. Pretty unlikely. That's the big complaint. They're laying off people that already do that work.So you're saying there is no waste or fraud in government to be found.... ok...
No, and you know perfectly well that's not what I said.So you're saying there is no waste or fraud in government to be found.... ok...
But this is where fundamental ideology differences kick in.
But SS was designed as a system where you get back based on what you paid in. And of course the 813 (says Forbes) billionaires in n the US can *each* make an the individual decision that you would by simply not claiming. And that would be a result in keeping with the nature of SS.
Yes, that ultimately is the issue, and I think the multiple changes predicted by fermion are likely what can and will be done to solve the problem. (I think "and" on the first of his predictions.)
I would like to second this. While I understand why moderators were forced to cut certain treads short, if we totally avoid all the significant developments currently happening (especially those that impact the FIRE community), then the discussions in this forum become less interesting. There is a real cost to that as well. With that said, the problems always come from the posters (including myself). We posters will need to keep things civilized even in the heat of the discussion. If we don't, we should be sanctioned.
As someone on TV mentioned... the SS system has added ZERO to the $36 trillion debt of the US...
The obvious potential issue with this is that regular government expenditures use SS "extra funds" as a bank to borrow from. All the money comes from the same source. Is this method sustainable,I guess we will find out.
Well I think you'd find a lot of citizens wouldn't be too happy with this idea...even those of us that don't have hundreds of millions.
Popular I guess to bash billionaires but there are not enough of them to make a difference in the context of any reform.
. So I assume that means testing will come into play.. and some will be surprised at how deep that might reach. But, I am not going to get wrapped up about tomorrow, it keeps me from enjoying today - and dealing with the "worries" every day brings .
