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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (49507)	10/21/2000 7:30:26 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Very few Ponzi schemes work for 65 years. The original OASI scheme was fully funded, of course, but interest and tax rates and contribution rates were so low, that the there were no payouts (just refunds) for the first 15 years. The amendments to the plan in 1951 (adopted by a Republican congress (the "Do-Nothing 80th ...") made some people eligible for benefits if they had worked as little as 6 quarters and paid retrospective contributions. This was an enormous windfall for many people who had been excluded from the original plan. I know of one man who paid about $300 in back taxes, worked four more years paying an additional $150 or so and died. His widow collected over $70,000 in benefits. The people who are really screwed by the current system are childless bachelor orphans who die before age 62. The person who buries them gets at most $255 regardless of how much they have paid. Of course, they have benefitted from the insurance protection while they lived. I am in favor of a voucher system for SS. Anytime you wish you can withdraw your cash value for a voucher you can cash for chips in a legal gambling casine, or as margin for a licensed securities dealer. You may gamble until you are ruined or 100 times above your stake. Your gambling house guarantees you the use of a gun to end it all. This is a someone bolder approach than Gore or Bush's investment plan with a more decisive outcome.