The market is a big Ponzi scam

[undergroundpanther]

A big worldwide Pyramid scam. Screwing everyone,but the few faceless ones driving it on top.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020801-104208-9705r

By definition, pyramid schemes are doomed to failure. The number of new "investors" -- and the new money they make available to the pyramid's organizers -- is limited. When the funds run out and the old investors can no longer be paid, panic ensues. In a classic "run on the bank," everyone attempts to draw his money simultaneously. Even healthy banks -- a distant relative of pyramid schemes -- cannot cope with such stampedes. Some of the money is invested long-term, or lent. Few financial institutions keep more than 10 percent of their deposits in liquid on-call reserves.

http://www.sacredlands.org/pyramid.htm

There's a saying in Argentina that each night God cleans up the mess the Argentines make by day. This seems to be what all of us are counting on. During the 20th century alone, our population multiplied by four, while our consumption grew by 40. Yet the number in abject poverty today is as great as all mankind in 1900. Is this progress? Can the stock market be trusted to run the world? Or is our consumerist boom the illusory wealth of wastrels blowing an inheritance -- by no means only their own? Is the promise of prosperity for six billion the Big Lie of our time?

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. I'll read it later.

[On the Road]

2. Social Security is NOT a Pyramid Scheme

Nothing in either article even suggests that.

The first article, mostly on asset bubbles, makes a good case for Social Security keeping its surplus in government bonds rather than stocks.

The second article makes a case that insutrial civilization is a bubble. Time will tell whether that's true, but it has nothing to do with SS. Note that the 75-year projections being used to forecast the future of SS include a growth rate of only 1.9% a year. That's very pessimistic, and factors in a major collapse at some point.

[undergroundpanther]

3. If social security

becomes subjected to the"whims" of the market where it's DESIGNED to make money flow up to the top by default it will become a POnzi scam.

[On the Road]

4. Private Accounts Could Result in an Asset Bubble

caused by demographic ownership. But that's really the antithesis of Social Security today. I still don't think it's a Ponzi scheme. The assets private accounts are there to be withdrawn. They just may not grow as quickly as Bush is promising.