Exactly what prompted my original train of though earlier today, who can say. I'm not financially savvy in general, and I primarily keep myself out of trouble by recalling the general rule that, if something sounds too good to be true, it's not. Stories of the Madoff Ponzi scheme have been all over the news, however, and I have spent a bit of time reading over the basics of what happened.
It was only today, however, that it occurred to me that social security basically amounts to a government sanctioned Ponzi scheme. Again, cut me some slack, I'm not an expert here. However, doing a little bit of searching online brings up some interesting info. Estimates as to when SS will start running into deficits are, of course, dependent on the state of the economy and work force, but from what I've gathered in a quick run through of searches on economic articles, it sounds like the first hits are going to come around 2017 or 2018, and then exponentially worsen by around 2040. So, by currently "investing" into the current system and planning to work until retirement age, I'm basically funding the earlier investors in the system with a very questionable possibility that the favor will be returned.
Granted, SS never promises huge returns to begin with (unlike a Ponzi scheme), but you are theoretically putting this money in with a promise of guaranteed retirement income, and it seems questionable that you can't opt out of it even with the knowledge that it's likely an empty promise.
So. That sucks. I mean, I've known for a long time that social security is not something I'm going to rely on in 40 years or so. It just kind of bothered me that, with all the talk of pyramid schemes and such currently in the news, this seems like much the same, except a legal version that the working public has no way of avoiding.
Gotta say, Chile seems to have a good thing going. Can someone in charge please talk to Mr. José Piñera?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment