re: Social Security - Help me understand better

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Who is "Social security?" Maybe the trust is honest, but the politicians and interest groups that have control and influence over social security law and policy have done nothing to disabuse people of the notion that any policy that "cuts" benefits is taking away benefits that they "paid for." You are ignoring this to the point of dishonesty.

And let's side aside that point. Even then, the best you can say is "Social Security is honest about being a ponzi scheme."

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Social security has never been presented in a similar fashion as a Ponzi Scheme by anyone who wasn't villifying one of the most successful social programs in the history of mankind. It can't be turned into a Ponzi scheme by dishonest politicians and special interest groups, which certainly do exist and have done all they can to use social security as a dividing line between people so they can exploit us further. The only real damage that can be done would involve turning it over to the investor class.

I am not ignoring folks who claim any adjustment is a cut in benefits that people have paid for...I think that any adjustment is rightfully seen as just that...and it is necessary still for the fund to satisfy its core mission. More honest politicians in the early 80's from both parties managed to pull just that off while telling people exactly what they were doing...making it longer to reach FRA which is indeed a cut in benefits that have been bought and paid for. No one liked it but they accepted it because they could trust those leaders. This was before one party openly admitted they dreamed of letting medicare wither on the vine and handing the SS money over to bankers because that has worked out for the elderly, the disabled and the orphaned so well in the past and the other party concluded that any talk of any adjustment in social security was an attack on the neediest segments of society when in fact most of the burden is carried by the wealthiest among us. That started just days after we accepted the last major adjustment and since we have been inundated with tales of social securities imminent demise and how bad an investment it is, despite it never having been an investment (why it isn't also touted as a lousy linebacker is beyond me, it is as much that as an investment) and villification of the fund to the point where many of us are simply done with altogether. We are willing to break our promise to one another because abunch of sleazy politicians tell us its the other sides fault and that makes us feel good.

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You are equating operating with sold. I don't care how it was marketed, I care how it's financed. No private insurance company could get away with how SS is financed.

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That is because of 2 things....social security is not a private insurance company and no private insurance company would feign to undertake the basic mission of social security because there is no way to do so and turn a profit. Every penny of social security is used to administer the fund and pay benefits. Insurance requires investors be made whole. They could not do that and meet the basic requirement of the mission of social security.