Social Security: The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth (By Milton Friedman)

Re:Social Security: The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth (By Mi... by justindz on Monday January 05, 2009 @03:09PM (#421006)

This is an important point you've raised. In particular, lowered infant mortality combined with a poor grasp of statistics makes it look like you and I are living longer, even when those infants that might have died before could end up keeling over at 30 from health problems and we might die a few years earlier than we were likely to a few decades ago.

Also, people who are living longer as a result of advances in life-saving surgery are doing so in poor health as a result of the reasons for the increased necessity of these surgeries such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Increasing the retirement age in this context could mean attempting to employ a bunch of people not fit to be productive, in a worst case scenario.

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Re:Social Security: The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth (By Mi... by mattmaroon on Monday January 05, 2009 @03:59PM (#421101)

I blame it on the government for citing the worthless stat in the first place. They rarely express it as anything other than from birth expectancy. They should mention it from some stable age like 5, then simply show infant mortality stats separately. Though I guess they don't want to do that because we have one of the worst rates in the developed world.

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Re:Social Security: The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth (By Mi... by justindz on Monday January 05, 2009 @09:09PM (#421484)

Congress is good at fund raising, not math.

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