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Comment by Suzuran | Hacker News Reader

Does it matter? In the US, we send a sizable portion of our paychecks to the government's Social Security program so it can provide for us in this exact scenario. The government dictated the terms and we upheld our end of the contract on pain of incarceration. Now it's time for the government to uphold their end.

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Technically, SS provides for the next generation. We pay into it to the next generation can use that, not the current one. It's a pyramid scheme meant to pay out early and then die. The math doesn't work if the individual expects to retire on it. It's a great scam.

It's not my problem if the math doesn't work, or if my money doesn't pay for me. The contract as presented to me by the government is "You will pay into this system, it provides Social Security to the aged and disabled. If you do not pay into this system, you will be judged guilty of a criminal offense and sentenced accordingly." The specifics of who pays and for what are the government's problem, not mine. Whether or not the government is guilty of fraud or misrepresentation does not affect the terms. I fail to see why I should consider the government free of the obligations they themselves have mandated.

Social security taxes explicitly pay for the current generation of retirees. it's not a pyramid scheme (how would that even make any sense?). The "trust fund" is running out of money but that could easily be solved if we were willing to tax the rich, corporate profits, and capital gains, at higher rates or more aggressively (that is not allowing corporations to escape tax so easily). Or we could continue to fund it at a deficit. But, again, it's not a pyramid scheme. That doesn't make any sense.

I think the person you were responding to meant ponzi scheme, not pyramid scheme. The first sentence from Wikipedia sounds quite similar to SS

> A Ponzi scheme (/ˈpɒnzi/, Italian: [ˈpontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors

Just replace investors with tax payers.

it's not a ponzi scheme either. in a ponzi scheme the top of the funnel gets rich off the funds of new investors who are expecting a return. my taxes are not an investment secretly used to make some people rich by fooling newcomers, they're explicitly directly funding the current beneficiaries.

While that is true, the problem is they have raised the age required to receive benefits in the past and they likely will do it again. Many people will die off before they receive the benefits. The system is also probably going to go insolvent in the early 2030s and the benefits will be cut by over 20%.

Many young people feel like they are going to pay into SS for 50 years to pay for the older generations and then when they retire they are going to receive less than they paid in. Obviously that may or may not be the case, but there is a general feeling that they are being gypped in order to pay for the older generation's retirement that they will not get themselves.

What a great collection of incorrect right wing talking points!

Look up when benefits began to be paid. The current payments very much and by design pay for the current retirees. The idea that this is some kind of elaborate “scam” when it is one of those things that every other civilized country has figured out is hilarious. Go travel. Go talk to some retirees there. Turn off the Fox News.

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