“Mainly” and “mostly” 🤨

No argument here

It has two sources of funding (taxes being the second) and there isn’t a middle man skimming a cut while paying older participants simply with new participants’ money while claiming their money is invested to generate money to pay them all out. The entire point of a Ponzi scheme is you are pretending there is money being generated that isn’t, you are just using new victims money for as long as possible until the music stops. They literally make up numbers to cover their tracks. It’s a fraudulent enterprise by design.

It is not a Ponzi scheme. It is literally not a Ponzi scheme by definition. You are making up your own rules and definitions because of how it feels to you. Do I think it is flawed and not a great way of handling these funds if you want them to be steady in the longterm? Absolutely. But it is not a Ponzi scheme.

I’m done man.

It can sound like someone’s whistling Dixie if you want to claim that, it doesn’t make it true.

That’s not a fucking Ponzi scheme dude! It’s right there in your own comment!

State pension plans are primarily funded (in order of what comprises the most) by 1) the government 2) investments and 3) employee contributions.

Pay as you go is about employee contributions, which is typically the smallest pot being contributed. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

When did I ever say the problem goes away? I am saying it is not a Ponzi scheme. You were saying it is a Ponzi scheme. Don’t move the goalposts here.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how these funds work.

The goal is not to pay people with the money from new people paying into the pot. They invest the money and then the pot grows and that money is used to pay out. When the pot is not growing enough - whether because investments aren’t doing well enough, or you designed a you designed an bad system where people can withdraw from it for too long, or any other many possible issues - then yes you functionally end up dipping into the money given by new people, but this is not how it was designed to be used.

You are acting like this is a one-to-one system where you just put money in, then you get money out later, and all of the money given out is 100% the money that people put in in the first place with no intention of growing that money or finding a sustainable way of disseminating it long-term.

Mismanagement/poorly built systems are not the same as Ponzi schemes. Unless you think, I don’t know, US Social Security is also a Ponzi scheme?

The opening statement kind of sets the tone but it’s not a huge deal. Just something to consider.

Unfortunately your initial comment did sound a fair bit like “therapy doesn’t work it just serves capitalism.“ I would be very careful with how you phrase that point.

Obergfell was 9 years ago.

That’s still not a Ponzi scheme even if it isn’t sustainable.

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This is a flippant and unproductive comment that ignores the fact that we have a culture of passing down what you have to your children so that they can have a better life than you had - something many of these boomers benefitted from.

I get not everybody is entitled to it but it’s kind of considered a major goal for a lot of Americans to do that for their children. Which means it reflects poorly on the boomers who have said “nah fuck you” after also pillaging our future for their wealth.

I’ve had people tell me straight faced that Elon Musk should absolutely be where he is because “he doesn’t care about money or power.” It’s unbelievable.

There are a myriad of fantastic organizations doing great work and if 5% of the disillusioned crowd got involved they’d make huge gains. They just want a single President to magic wand everything they want into existence, if they can even define what they want half the time.

I get what you’re saying I really do but we do this same song and dance every 4 years since 2012

Yes it’s a privilege to be able to do what I do. But I guarantee you almost every person who goes online writing comment after comments about how “there are simply no good candidates” could’ve donated a few dollars or phone banked at least once for someone. If you ask them who they would have wanted instead they can’t even answer that because they don’t know. They just get mad at the establishment during the final hours then disappear for a few years and never try to do anything about it.

This.

I currently volunteer with and donate to the EFF and CSE, and I worked both of Bernie’s campaign. If your goal is to flip the script on me you’ll need to find another approach. Or you could try actually engaging the points.

Yes it was overly angry and ranty but I am tired of repeating it and this election was frustrating as fuck.

sigh yes you’re the third or fourth person to make this joke. Yes I agree.

The point is that nobody calls them terrorists for doing that. Putting words or art on weapons and ammo is considered “normal” as twisted as that is. So Luigi’s doing it does not make him a terrorist.