Perry’s Ponzi-Talk Implies Fraud in Long-Popular Social Security
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Charles Ponzi was a legendary Boston swindler who promised investors 100 percent returns in 90 days if they joined a scheme to buy and sell international postal coupons. In 1920, after roughly seven months of easy riches, he was exposed as a fraud and arrested.
Social Security is a government-run insurance program that provides the typical retiree with single-digit returns on contributions deducted from their paychecks over the course of their working lives. The program has operated for 76 years amid praise from presidents of both parties. In 1983, even as staunch a critic of big government as President Ronald Reagan vowed: “The Social Security system must be preserved.”