BREAKING: Elon Musk called Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" in an interview with Joe Rogan.

[Celerity]

The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO replies:

[bdamomma]

1. 2 words

fuck off.

[SheltieLover]

2. Well said!

I'll add 2 more: OUR MONEY.

And another 2: It works.

And 2 more: Hands off!

[enough]

20. Every time he has to answer a question he sounds like a middle school kid

having to answer a question in class without doing the homework.

[Rebl2]

3. You are

Going to have a lot of magas hating you Eloon if you get rid of their social security and Medicare that they depend on. They have always been vocal about that.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Ponzi Schenes Don't...

...run surpluses for 75 years.
He has got to be the luckiest idiot of all time. Dumb as dirt but still became the world's richest person.

[mn9driver]

11. I think we are in a Kurt Vonnegut novel.

Satire has become reality.

[eppur_se_muova]

15. So comically bad it's more like a Ron Goulart novel -- set on Murdstone, in the Barnum System.

Pure ridiculousness, with no deep principles behind it at all. Also, lizard-men.

[yellow dahlia]

21. Seriously?!!

I used to like Kurt Vonnegut novels in my youth.

I used to like dystopian and futuristic movies also...but I never wanted to live in one.

[Celerity]

14. CBO's 2024 Long-Term Projections for Social Security

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60679



At a Glance

In this report, the Congressional Budget Office describes its 75-year projections for the Social Security program. One set of projections reflects a scenario in which the program continues to pay retirement, disability, and related benefits as scheduled under current law, regardless of whether the program’s two trust funds have sufficient balances to cover those payments. The second set of projections reflects a scenario in which Social Security’s outlays are limited to the amounts that can be paid from the program’s annual revenues after the combined balance of the trust funds is exhausted—which is now projected to occur in fiscal year 2034.

Social Security’s Finances, With Scheduled Benefits.

CBO projects that if Social Security paid benefits as scheduled, spending on the program would increase from 5.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024 to 6.7 percent in 2098. That increase is attributable to the growing share of the population age 65 or older. The program’s revenues would remain near 4.5 percent of GDP during that 75-year period. After 2098, the gap between revenues and outlays as a percentage of GDP would widen, and shortfalls would continue to grow.

In CBO’s projections, the balance of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is exhausted in fiscal year 2033, and the balance of the Disability Insurance Trust Fund is exhausted in 2064. Social Security’s actuarial deficit over the next 75 years, a summary measure of the program’s sustainability, is equal to 1.5 percent of GDP or 4.3 percent of taxable payroll (total earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax).

Distribution of Scheduled Benefits and Payroll Taxes.

Average initial benefits are projected to increase over time in real terms (that is, after adjustments to remove the effects of inflation). For people born from the 1950s to the 1990s, those initial benefits replace more than one-third of preretirement earnings for retired workers and more than half of average recent earnings for disabled workers. Within a cohort of Social Security recipients who were born in the same decade, people with higher earnings generally receive larger benefits than people with lower earnings, but those larger benefits replace a smaller share of their previous earnings. People with higher earnings also generally pay a larger dollar amount—but a smaller share of their lifetime earnings—in Social Security payroll taxes. The Social Security program is progressive in that lifetime benefits tend to be larger relative to lifetime payroll taxes for people with lower earnings than for people with higher earnings.

Social Security’s Finances, With Payable Benefits.

If Social Security’s outlays were limited to the amounts that could be paid from annual revenues after the combined balance of the trust funds was exhausted in fiscal year 2034, benefits would be about 23 percent smaller than scheduled benefits in 2035, CBO projects. Payable benefits would be about 28 percent smaller than scheduled benefits in 2098.

Distribution of Payable Benefits.

In the payable-benefits scenario, average initial retirement benefits resume growing over time after the combined balance of the trust funds is exhausted. But those benefits are smaller than scheduled benefits for people born after 1969 (who turn 65 after 2034).

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Not Understanding Your Point

Your charts only go back to 1995 or so.
Social security was already 60 years old at that point.
What do 2040 or 2060 have to do with what I said?

[Scrivener7]

24. But pretty much all that could be solved if they taxed billionaires at the same rate as they tax

the rest of us.

[Scrivener7]

23. Right? He's a moron! I guess when you inherit an emerald mine, you don't need

a brain.

[dalton99a]

35. +1

[Aussie105]

5. Social Security is the government caring for its people.

And that is the main function of any government.

But Elon thinks it is a con, so I guess looking after people isn't seen as an essential government function.

[Dave says]

8. Another way to look at it: It's Americans taking care of ourselves through the instrument of government

So hands off, non-American Musk.

[allegorical oracle]

7. Did Elon say that before or after he said, "Let them eat cake?" nt

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Well, we know what that led to. nt

[Raven123]

9. Dems need to use this endlessly

[QED]

10. Just another government program he doesn't understand.

What a moran.

[Initech]

12. Elon Starvo Blofeld

The guy is literally a furry cat and an island fortress away from being a full blown James Bond villain. And he wonders why he's so hated.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Ponzi schemes don't have to stop paying out if the shareholder dies.

SS does. That's why the money paid out need not be more than what was paid in. Surpluses paid by each generation are passed on to the next -- it's what inheritance normally accomplishes for the well off. SS is just an inheritance program for the less well off, who would likely have nothing otherwise.

Ponzi schemes can be summed up as "fleecing Peter to pay Paul" -- and trying to keep the promised payouts ahead of demand by ever-increasing buy-ins, until the whole thing collapses. SS avoids that, as long as GOP Congresscritters can be stopped from looting it.

It's amazing how appallingly, voluntarily ignorant Reich-wingers can be in trying to justify their delusions of victimhood.

[Progressive dog]

17. It's only a Ponzi scheme

if Trump, Musk, and the rest of the MAGA grifters turn it into one.

[SWBTATTReg]

18. Sounds like it's time for a tax increase, but solely for Elon Muskrat, to secure our social security even

more, such as tax his income 100% for the next 10 years. Tax tRUMP's income too 100%. Justify the tax increase by stating that the damages that these two persons alone did to our Country justifies any and all taxes directly solely at them (if they don't pay, seize all of their property).

[GoCubsGo]

19. It's the Right's favorite perjorative when it comes to Social Security.

I am not surprised that this stupid, drug addled motherfucker is parroting it on the other dumb, drug-addled motherfucker's podcast. Get ready for all of their knuckle-dragging bro fanboys to parrot it further.

[Emile]

25. If SS is a ponzi scheme, what is SpaceX?

[JoseBalow]

41. Welfare

[brush]

26. The uninformed sucker doesn't know what he's talking about. We're to take his word that everyone is living...

longer and fewer babies are being born to grow up and pay into the SS fund? And as most informed people know, all that has too be done to fund it for another 75 years us it raise the income level higher for FICA deductions.

If he knew it he'd still be calling it a Ponzi scheme, which it isn't SS incomes are earned benetints from decades of contributing to the fund.

The are not entitlement as rethugs like to call them.

[alarimer]

27. I think he's a bigger asshole than Trump

Fuck Spotify for giving Rogan a platform for this bullshit.

[dalton99a]

34. He really is. And far more destructive.

[Hugin]

28. No... Crapto is a ponzi scheme.

The basis of a so-called ponzi scheme is when an originator pays high returns to early investors solely using the money of later investors to draw in even more investors who will receive nothing. The originator walking away with the bulk of the investments.

Just like $TRUMP.

Tesla is looking more and more like one too.

It's simply more of the juvenile, "I'm not a..., you're a..." that's become the signature of how the current administration operates.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

29. Hey Muskrat

Go die. I paid into Social Security for 50 years.

[milestogo]

30. Three things:

He does not know what Social Security is. There is no resemblance to a Ponzi scheme.

He does not actually know what a Ponzi scheme is. He needs to look it up or talk to the actual victims of one.

Joe Rogan is an idiot. Only idiots talk to him, and only idiots listen to him.

[wiggs]

31. it is literally one of the most successful fed programs of all time and has slashed senior poverty since inception. Is

this being discussed?

[B.See]

32. HIS azz is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.

[dalton99a]

33. Deport that Nazi parasite.

[waterwatcher123]

36. Says the man who invests in crypto currency!

[boonecreek]

37. Funny how it's only the grifters

Last edited Sat Mar 1, 2025, 11:17 PM - Edit history (1)

see SS as a Ponzi scheme.

[Baron2024]

38. It Is No Surprise

It is no surprise that Musk is reporting death threats. If you throw people's Grandma out into the streets, people get angry. Multiply that by tens of millions of people and you get an idea of the scale. Musk can go f&ck off.

[dalton99a]

39. Kick

[MLAA]

40. If I were a Dem Billionaire I'd play that clip with no comment on every right wing nut job station, blog, website and

load up like crazy Facebook ads non stop till I’d spent at least 50% of my money.

[JoseBalow]

42. This is what happens when you don't eat the rich

They eat you.

[JCMach1]

43. Entitled, foreign mother f'er...

He needs to be financially kneecapped when the worm turns.