The funny thing is that people will actually buy these. I think CNN said they were around $22 each. Just so you can pay someone else and make them rich so you can smash them. Where is sugarpop's outrage on this one? :D

Why would she be outraged?

Because they are not diverting wealth to those that never came up with the idea.:D

Why are you confusing insurance with something completely irrelevant to Madoff? You obviously know the difference. Why are you confusing investment with insurance - two completely different topics?

Thousands of people contribute to insurance and get nothing so that the one gets reimbursement. Madoff was not an insurance company regulated by a state (ie NY). Madoff was an investment banker regulated by the organization gutted by a political agenda: the Security and Exchange Commission.

Nice diversion tom, but you FAIL-ed to answer the question.

The point I was making is that as they change the rules they can justify that SS is solvent when reality is quite different. wacko bean counters...

I accurately defined the game you just played. The discussion is about investements - not about insurance. And not about Social Security. SS also is not investing. You have simply thrown a hand grenade into a discussion that was not about SS and not about insurance.

#1 - You are the one that brought up insurance, not me.
#2 Happy Monkey and I were specifically discussing this EXACT scenario
#3 - Our discussion began back on page 3, with post #45. You sir, are incorrect. No hand grenade. At best you have detected thread drift which is perfectly normal.
#4 - If you don't read or cannot follow a thread and are just going to tailpost on assumptions and attack posters, then please don't comment on my posts. thank you very much.

Ponzi schemes are investment scams. Social Security is insurance. Happy Monkey also defined SS as insurance; not a ponzi scheme. Clodfobble then listed other insurance. Again classicman continues confusing insurance with investments. Like most who contribute, you get a reduced payout because it is insurance.

The topic is investments and Madoff. classicman even discussed a rumored $15million removed by his wife from an investment firm - not an insurance company. classicman also discussed investment firms such as Stanford and Barrington. Why post irrelevant nonsense about insurance?

Social Security is insurance. Get over it. Opting for a reduced payout is acceptable and expected. Insurance has not an investment. Ponzi schemes are investement scams - not insurance.

Stick to the facts without your usual personal attacks. Investments and insurance are two completely different structures no matter how you confuse it with venom. Social Security is insurance - not something to invest in. Is that easy enough for you? Or is this something you learned from clown school?

Tom, are you seriously trying to say that you cannot see there are multiple conversations going on? You conveniently omitted import posts. Some of which were half in jest. None were directed to you. Where is the example that HM laid out? There is also a response from him and another from me. You have taken much of a conversation that didn't include you out of context and added some that has no bearing just to manipulate it into something you can bitch about. That is something only a wacko extremist would do. You don't want to start with the name-calling again do you?

What is your real issue? Are you feeling ignored? Don't answer that, I don't care.
We have gone down the "tit for tat" route too many times. Do you really wanna lose your composure again and start defecating all over the board? Are you next going to call my family nasty names? Is that your goal?

Please put me on ignore and don't comment on my posts.

If you'd like to stay on the subject, Which of the above is not relevant to the conversation? The part where Madoff's wife withdrew 15 Million the same day that he was turned in or the fact that the other was being called a mini-madoff???

He's not wrong, though. You do seem to be figuring out a situation where insurance doesn't pay out, and treating it as a "gotcha". You might as well say "what if I pay for car insurance my whole life and never have an accident?"

As I said before, SS's solvency is based on the ratio of workers to retired people. If it got to the point that solvency required the retirement age to be 80, that would mean that there were enough retired people over 80 to counterbalance all the workers under 80. That would indicate an increase in average lifespan, making the scenario of dying at 79 less likely than under present conditions.

And that brings up a strength that Social Security has over other insurance, and even over investment. What if you live for much longer than the average lifespan? Most insurances in that type of situation would raise your rates. Investments will run out if you live longer than your financial planning anticipates. Social Security keeps paying out as long as there are still people who haven't retired yet.

The solvency of SS is based upon the parameters as you aptly stated. My point was, and still is, that they can embellish, for lack of a better word, the solvency by raising the minimum age at which one receives full benefits.

If they keep the age at 65 (for example) then the solvency is quite different than if they raise the age to say, 80 as in your example. By raising the age they are eliminating many people who have paid money in. This works because, as any amortization tables shows, the rate of death over 65 increases dramatically, thus allowing all the dollars put into the system by those now deceased individuals and spreading it a fewer who remain alive to/after the increased age. Your assumption that it will be based upon a longer life expectancy is not necessarily true. It may and probably will be raised just to keep it solvent.

By increasing the minimum age they effectively reduce the number of recipients while keeping the number of people putting into it. Is it illegal? No. Is it wrong? I certainly think so.

That is my point. If all remains as it is, there will still be money there for all who retire, I guess so. Will it be $1.00 or $100.00 - who knows. The reality is that in order for it to have some measured benefit for most recipients, the rules of the game are going to be changed.

The best thing they can do for it is raise the ceiling for contribution limits from around 95k or what ever that is, up to 110k.

It only has to be raised if life expectancy increases. Solvency is not a problem unless there are too many retired people for the working population to support. And, as TheMercenary pointed out, there are much easier (both politically and practically) ways of increasing funding than raising the retirement age. Of the three methods I mentioned (rates/retirement ages/upper tax limits), the retirement age is the one I would expect to, politically, need a life expectancy justification.

Raising the retirement age to 80 simply could not happen, politically, unless people were regularly living well past it. Raising the maximum yearly limit would, comparatively, be a cinch.

I agree. The most pressing issue will be as the baby boomers come of age. I know this is starting to a very small degree, but in the next 15 to 20 years there will be a greater disparity in the number of recipients versus that which has been put in by the working population charged with supporting them.