this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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politics

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Summary

Elon Musk called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” claiming it’s unsustainable due to long-term obligations exceeding tax revenue.

Critics, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, accused him of pushing privatization to benefit the wealthy. Musk also made false claims about Social Security mispayments.

His comments come amid looming Social Security cuts and restructuring. The Social Security Administration warns of potential fund shortages by 2035.

Democrats advocate for raising the tax cap on high earners to strengthen the program.

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[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago

claiming it’s unsustainable due to long-term obligations exceeding tax revenue.

Dude literally took over the system that allows the government to create money out of thin air, tellin us the government’s gonna run out of money.

Also, your fake department is named after the first meme coin. Which you tried to pump-and-dump on live TV. Ponzi-scheming motherfucker.

[–] turnip@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Didnt Reagan under a conservative government allow the money to be spent, in order to pay for the debt left over after the great society act?

It therefore would now be a ponzi scheme, where past investors pay new investors, until the outflows outpace inflows and it fails.

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[–] Rooskie91@discuss.online 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Lol Bro doesn't know what a Ponzi Scheme is

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[–] wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io 0 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I mean, in a way he’s not wrong. The money gets funneled from all of us all the way to the top.

But the thing is, the money does get distributed - all of it. The Ponzi at the top is us again, stealing from it to pay for infrastructure or defense spending.

And that is fine because that type of scheme with a large moat is called insurance. And so long as we can continue to pay out distributions, it is solvent.

But it isn’t solvent, because premiums haven’t kept up with payouts and the payouts for the baby boomers are massive. And if we don’t take some kind of action (e.g. increased premiums, disqualification for the rich, increase the benefit age) then payouts will eventually need to decrease.

[–] pr0sp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean, this system only works if we keep reproducing 2.5:1 factor. I don't want to condemn anyone to this world, so he is right. And with the birth rates lowering this is gonna be a serious problem, for most zoomers and alphas.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

We could increase immigration.

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[–] mbrailer@mstdn.social 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@MicroWave Ponzi schemes by their nature are short-lived; According to Wikipedia, Charles Ponzi's original scheme ran just over a year before collapsing. All pyramid schemes require a pool of investors that is constantly expanding, which is not the situation with Social Security.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles/_Ponzi

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago

With social security, the pool of investors is the entire country's population. This large size and government backing stabilises it. But the financials still rely on continuous population growth, forever, to work well.

The key financial metric in social security is the ratio of pay-ins to pay-outs. For example, it could be 5 paying employees for every retiree. The social security scheme has some minimum, critical ratio that is needed to maintain the tax rates and benefit levels. And if that minimum is, say, 5:1 workers to older retirees, that implies a population in a state of exponential demographic growth.

Right now, the US is propping up its lack of organic demographic growth with immigration, and accumulated trust fund savings from an earlier era. Japan had massive problems with its social security when its population stagnated.

Notice, however, that the government of Japan did not just implode like a securities fraud. This is because governments are fundamentally not like private sector criminals running Ponzi schemes.

[–] Waldowal@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Should have listened to Al Gore: Lockbox

[–] zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What a different world we would be in if Florida didn't fuck up in 2000

[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

What a different world we would be in if ~~Florida didn't fuck up in 2000~~ jeb bush and the Supreme Court didn't steal the election in 2000

Had FL simply not allowed Jeb to chair the committee to elect his brother in FL…

[–] kokolores@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The more news I read the more I think of judge dredd as the future for the USA.

Corporate Takeover of Government

Elon Musk and DOGE and the budget cuts, like a megacorp executive running essential public services for profit.

Trump & Musk pushing privatization, bust like how corporations in Judge Dredd control everything from housing to law enforcement.

Weakening Social Safety Nets

Cutting Social Security, making healthcare deniable based on religious beliefs (Arkansas bill), reducing government services looks like pushing society toward a survival-of-the-fittest model to me.

The rich live in luxury, while everyone else is left to fend for themselves like the division in Judge Dredd’s Mega-City One.

Authoritarianism & the Rule of the Few

Trump’s policies, Vance’s ideology, Musk’s influence, the US is shifting toward rule by billionaires and strongmen, bypassing democratic institutions.

The Rise of Private Justice & Armed Control

Musk’s obsession with tech-based policing & surveillance (like Neuralink, AI, and robot enforcement) eerily mirrors corporate-controlled law enforcement in dystopian fiction.

[–] vaguerant@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

And worst of all, Rob Schneider is there.

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