Walter Williams is the latest well-informed pundit to chime in with a defense of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s comments about Social Security and Ponzi schemes:
Belatedly, the Social Security Administration is trying to clean up its history of deception. Its website (http://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html) says, “entitlement to Social Security benefits is not (a) contractual right.”
The SSA adds that “there has been a temptation throughout the program’s history for some people to suppose that their FICA payroll taxes entitle them to a benefit in a legal, contractual sense. … Congress clearly had no such limitation in mind when crafting the law.”
That’s the SSA’s dishonesty. After all, it was the people in that administration who said, in their 1936 pamphlet, that “the checks will come to you as a right.” …
… Aside from these lies, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. The major difference between Social Security and Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is his was illegal. Three Nobel laureate economists have testified that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.
Nobel-winning economist Paul Samuelson called it “the greatest Ponzi game ever contrived.” Milton Friedman, also a Nobel laureate, said it was “the biggest Ponzi scheme on Earth.” Paul Krugman, another Nobel laureate, predicted that “the Ponzi game will soon be over.”
Three cheers to Perry for having the guts to tell us that Social Security is a monstrous lie and a Ponzi scheme.
