Summary
Elon Musk called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” claiming it’s unsustainable due to long-term obligations exceeding tax revenue.
Critics, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, accused him of pushing privatization to benefit the wealthy. Musk also made false claims about Social Security mispayments.
His comments come amid looming Social Security cuts and restructuring. The Social Security Administration warns of potential fund shortages by 2035.
Democrats advocate for raising the tax cap on high earners to strengthen the program.
It’s not a Ponzi Scheme when there’s nobody standing to profit you dumb fucking idiot fuck. It’s been getting funded for almost 100 years, and has only recently been under fire by assholes like you who accumulate wealth and remove it from being eligible for such a social safety net. Now you’re worried we’re coming for yours and Rogan’s money to fund it, and we will.
Y’all need to stop listening to these morons pal around and podcasts. They mean to harm you and your families, and take away the already middling social programs that benefit you, not them.
“If I’m not getting rich off it, someone else is.”
That’s how conservatives, from the rich to the poor, see the world.
It’s not just recently, conservatives have been threatening social security for decades.
Recently as in the last few decades. Reagan pretty much started all this bullshit, and it’s been a tug of war since.
Only recently?
Biden attacked social security in the 90s.
The 2025 earnings tax cap for social security is $176k.
If those richest among us, like Elon who makes billions per year, had to pay social security tax on a larger percentage of their earnings, or on all of it like those of us making less than $176k annually, the system would easily be solvent in perpetuity. The only reason it’s potentially at risk is because rich assholes have lobbied successfully in order to not pay into it.
What is their counter argument, would it increase the velocity of money and inflation, raising interest rates for everyone and inhibiting economic growth? Or would it be that we’d need to raise capital gains taxes, which would cause US investment to flee?
The argument is it’s not a tax or insurance but a communal retirement fund meant to supplement private retirement benefits or keep the elderly out of poverty. It’s limited in what it pays out so your investment should be limited at the same place
People who earn $176k get the highest benefit, and they don’t get anymore no matter how much more they earn. They’re not getting more so don’t think they should pay in more.
I don’t know how the benefit is calculated but presumable if higher earners kick in more, the formula would need to change so it’s not all going back to them
Here’s my counter-argument to that:
Considering none of their companies or financial trusts would be worth anything without workers, I think we should cap the benefit at $176k and increase contributions to have no cap as a way to thank the workers. This would give people a good retirement to look forward to after a long career in service to the various institutions.
Further, if some of them still have billions after 4 years of this updated social security investment policy, we should make being so illegal and kill off the billionaires by applying a wealth tax until they’re just regular old millionaires. This would fund the now desperately needed infrastructure projects to keep the country safe and modernized.
It’s a free market so they’d be welcome to solely do business in Russia or the Cayman Islands or something, if they’d prefer.
The favorite dumb argument from the guys who constantly defraud governments via tax dodging and subsidies.
Despicable thief and con man.
Does he feel like way about all pension programs or just the ones he is trying to plunder?
Conservatives think the government should be run like a business. You’re not buying or selling anything, the point is to serve the people you fucks.
How should it be run, like a Keynesian, an MMT, a monetarist, something else?
Alternative headline: expert on ponzi schemes bemoans what he sees as competition
If Musk dislikes “Ponzi schemes,” maybe start by rejecting government subsidies for his ventures.
🐱🐱
No no no, not like that. - Moscow musk
Send that nazi back to South Africa
Better off being sent up to join Willzyx
Put that thing back where it came from or so help meeeee
Unfortunately US Republicans are Nazi’s. Another sad thing is our society is too stupid to see the similarities as well as afraid calling a spade a spade.
US Republicans are Nazi’s.
Social security is never going to “run out” it’s continuously funded, that’s how it works. America lacks curiosity and an attention span beyond a couple seconds. Conservatives loudly accuse (while projecting), demand detailed explanation and then immediately become disinterested in the explanation they demanded - mostly because they can’t comprehend the basic concepts and their eyes glaze over. For the most part they are unserious, homicidal and suicidal and just looking for an excuse to have an outburst.
Don’t let them leech your energy trying to explain or debate. They don’t know or care what you are talking about.
Elon is a anamorphic Ponzi scheme.
I understand what he is saying. It kinda looks like one at first glance, because contributions from current workers go first to pay current retirees.
But what he misses is that we did it that way on purpose. The end goal was to make Americans more secure as a country. Americans could work at their jobs and be confident that they would be taken care of in their old age by the younger generation as a whole, Americans taking care of each other. I understand that the money I pay in now is going to support my parents and their generation, and I really dont mind. We’ll see if these dimwits ruin it by the time I need it.
Everything with these MAGA idiots is zero-sum. If they are paying money to anyone, they need to be the ones getting the benefits from it, otherwise it is a “scam”. The problem with zero-sum is that there always have to be winners and losers. And if the people in power are always the winners, what does that make us?
He is in charge of this debacle. He needs to give it more than a first glance
I understand what he is saying. It kinda looks like one at first glance, because contributions from current workers go first to pay current retirees.
But that’s how private insurance and retirement plans work too. The only difference is that private ones also benefit some rich CEOs at the top who have a vested interest to not distribute the funds.
His bullshit he’s spouting isn’t even true. US life expectancy hasn’t even increased at all over the past 20 years, and has only gone up by like 7 years over the past 50 and they’ve increased retirement age since then.
Yep. It’d be inconvenient for them to note that the funding issues are primarily driven by increasing concentration of income which falls above the Social Security withholding cap. If they’d just remove that cap, then no issue.
I mean, in a way he’s not wrong. The money gets funneled from all of us all the way to the top.
But the thing is, the money does get distributed - all of it. The Ponzi at the top is us again, stealing from it to pay for infrastructure or defense spending.
And that is fine because that type of scheme with a large moat is called insurance. And so long as we can continue to pay out distributions, it is solvent.
But it isn’t solvent, because premiums haven’t kept up with payouts and the payouts for the baby boomers are massive. And if we don’t take some kind of action (e.g. increased premiums, disqualification for the rich, increase the benefit age) then payouts will eventually need to decrease.
Actually, the remedy Social Security needs is to remove the income cap. Elon Musk pays just as much into social security as I do: ~$10,900
It’s because there’s a cap: $176,100. Once you earn that much in income you don’t have to pay into social security anymore! It’s ridiculous!
Basically, the richer you are, the less you’re paying into social security as a percentage of your income. It’s the opposite of progressive (just like HSAs).
Remove the cap and people like Musk will be paying millions into Social Security every year. It’ll make it solvent again in no time at all.
I mean, this system only works if we keep reproducing 2.5:1 factor. I don’t want to condemn anyone to this world, so he is right. And with the birth rates lowering this is gonna be a serious problem, for most zoomers and alphas.
Lol Bro doesn’t know what a Ponzi Scheme is
He doesn’t know what almost anything really is, despite all the bullshit he spouts. He’s the human embodiment of the Dunning Kruger effect.
The entire stock market is basically a ponzi scheme.
Push pensions, 401k, 529, HSA money into one spot and then rug the whole market every few years.
Okay crypto-fascist whatever you say
