Social Security: Successful Failure

Written By: Marc Rudov  |  Posted: Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

Violation of Immutable Psychology
Social Security has the dual distinction of being both an abysmal failure and a whopping success, and that's not just political double-speak. It all depends on the side of the coin you favor.
As the most-egregious--and unconstitutional--Ponzi scheme of all time (today's elderly recipients are funded by young workers, not from their own contributions of yore), Social Security is irreversibly insolvent. In 1950, the worker-to-beneficiary ratio was 16.5-to-1. In 2010, that ratio is almost 2-to-1.

Notwithstanding the political nonsense, Social Security's failure is rooted not in actuarial anomalies but in the violation of immutable psychology: people succeed only when they are responsible for their own decisions and actions. When government manages your life, it will fail--and, therefore, you will fail.

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