Social Security: A Monstrous Inconvenient Truth

Along with all the other liberal ilk of his kind, John Gruber cherry picks this quote from The Economist:

The Economist on Texas governor Rick Perry’s crackpot claim that Social Security “is a Ponzi scheme”:

No Ponzi scheme in the history of the world has ever lasted 75 years.

Just because no other Ponzi scheme has lasted 75 years doesn’t make Social Security any less of a Ponzi scheme. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck¹ (before the liberal mainstream media redefines “duck,” of course²), then it is a duck, no matter how old it is.

Besides, who really cares if anybody calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme? Does that change the fact that Social Security is an insolvent, underfunded mess?

¹ By all definitions of “Ponzi scheme” I can find, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Check out the wikipedia entry, for example. Or this, from the SEC:

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk.

What’s not a Ponzi scheme about Social Security?

² Here, for example. It is interesting that few of the items in the Mother Jones Makes Up Its Own Definition for “Ponzi Scheme” Venn diagram in that article appear in the real definitions of Ponzi scheme.