Social Security Is A Ponzi Scam

I've written about this before. Social Security is one big Ponzi scam.

In some ways, Social Security is worse than a Ponzi scam. With Bernard Madoff, I could have protected myself by refusing to invest or doing due diligence. With Social Security, I'm forced to participate via taxes. Also, State accounting is exempt from the rules that normally apply to the private sector. If the State does something, it's presumed to be a good idea.

This is a current issue, because Rick Perry criticized Social Security.

It seems that Rick Perry's character is "I'm saying politically incorrect things. Therefore, all people who believe these things are fools."

Rick Perry has picked a few "politically incorrect" statements.

1. Social Security is a Ponzi Scam. (true)
2. "Carbon dioxide causes global warming" is a scam. (true, but Rick Perry presents a weak criticism, which almost makes it seem like an edorsement)
3. criticizing the Federal Reserve (again, it's a weak criticism)
4. I doubt evolution. (gotta throw in something silly to make him look like a complete fool)
   

BTW, Rick Perry seems like the insider's choice, for the next President. Ron Paul is the least evil candidate. The fnords seem to indicate that Rick Perry will win.

Getting back to the post title, Social Security is a Ponzi scam.

First, I'll address one irrelevant point, "Social Security is Unconstitutional". The Social Security tax is an income tax. It's as valid as everything else the IRS does. (I'm ignoring people who say that the income tax is invalid due to a legal technicality. Unfortunately, Federal judges and appeals court judges have consistently ruled that the income tax is 100% legal, as currently enforced. Even if they are wrong, they have a "justice" monopoly and their decision is final.)

Suppose that younger workers were given the choice to opt-out. They agree to not make any future claims, and in return they don't pay any more Social Security taxes (both employer and employee portion). The worker effectively pays the employer portion of Social Security tax. His salary is reduced by the amount of payroll tax the employer pays.

A pro-State troll says "You're being silly. Social Security would collapse in insolvency if younger workers could opt-out." Isn't that proof it's a Ponzi scam?

A pro-State troll says "Social Security isn't a Ponzi scam. It's pay-as-you-go." This is arguing definitions. Pay-as-you-go is a fancy word that means "Ponzi scam". Current Social Security taxes pay benefits to people who pay in previously. That's a Ponzi scam; current payments go to previous investors.

A pro-State troll points out "Government is not required to obey the same accounting rules as the private sector." Any private business that used the same methods as Social Security would be shut down for operating a fraud. Government does it and passes a law saying it's legal. That doesn't make it not-a-scam.

There's no way that current Social Security promises can be kept, unless there's massive inflation, tax hikes, or benefit cuts. It's a Ponzi scam.

Like all Ponzi scams, Social Security was initially profitable for the scamsters, until it collapses as the scam is exposed via insolvency. Until 2010, Social Security was a massive profit center for the State. Until 2010, Social Security taxes collected exceeded benefits paid. The surplus was not put into a "trust fund". That's an accounting fiction. That money was immediately spent. Because Social Security ran a taxation surplus, deficit spending could occur elsewhere without causing inflation.

Consider this analogy. "Bernard Madoff is running a Ponzi scam. Let's give him another $5B so he can keep his scam running." That's obviously silly. That's what all the "reform Social Security" proposals sound like.

With Bernard Madoff, his scam was stopped and leftover money was returned to investors. The Social Security scam should be stopped and the leftover money should be returned to taxpayers. There's nothing in the Social Security trust fund, just a stack of IOUs. The "leftover funds" is $0.

In many ways, Social Security is worse than any private-sector Ponzi scam. I didn't invest with Bernard Madoff. In the private sector, I can be clever and not be fooled by scamsters. Under threat of violence, I'm forced to participate in Social Security via taxes. Via State lawmaking magic pixie dust, Social Security is not-a-scam, because State lawmakers and comedians say so.

Social Security was sold to the public as an "insurance plan". To maintain that illusion, the Amish were given an exemption. Social Security is an income tax. The complicated "benefit formula" helps hide the fact that it's a tax. It makes it seem like you're paying taxes in exchange for some future benefit. Even for current retirees, they're getting a lousy return compared to most other investments. It's going to be even worse for younger workers.

Social Security is one big Ponzi scam. Anyone who says otherwise is either a fool or a liar. Current Social Security taxes pay benefits to previous "investors"/taxpayers. That's a Ponzi scam.

Unemployed Again

My contract ended and I'm unemployed again. I mentioned this indirectly, but not explicitly.

So far, I'm getting 1 interview per week, which is decent.

I'm doing the usual jobsearch grind. You might say "FSK, start your own business!" That isn't easy as it sounds. I'm making only $5/month from AdBrite ads. It's not that easy to find something that's a moneymaker.

That's the problem with the economy. If it were easy for someone like me to start a business or co-found a business, then the economy wouldn't be in the toilet. Instead, people with political connections have spectacular success, while I'm struggling to get by.

Even if I'm bootstrapping a successful business, I still need income in the meantime.

I like my new Android phone. I'm going to download the SDK and experiment.

Now that I have greater awareness, searching for a job is frustrating. I'm interviewing with people who have *BOTH* less emotional awareness and less logical ability, compared to me. Previously, I usually outranked employers on logical awareness but not emotional awareness.

It is very frustrating, to try to convince someone who doesn't know as much as me, to hire me. You might say "Act stupider!", but I'm not going to do that.

Nobody says "FSK, we're rejecting you because you're too smart. You'll make me look bad in comparison. I'm rejecting you out of concern for my own job security." Nobody will say that. Instead, they make up some other excuse.

There's always one parasite or psychopath on the hiring committee. The rule usually is "Everyone has to vote 'yes' to hire someone." Therefore, the evil interviewer will veto hiring me, because he feels threatened by me. Due to the nature of the State, *EVERY* work group has someone evil or evil-leaning.

Another good trick is "I'm making up a reason to reject FSK, because there's someone else I want to hire." It's very easy for the interviewer to give me a bad rating when nobody else is looking, and then give favorable ratings to his friends or people he doesn't feel threatened by. I suspect that, in some cases, the interviewee gets the interview questions ahead of time.

My favorite joke is "We want you to work for equity only." In other words, work for free. I'm not dumb enough to fall for that one, but it doesn't hurt to ask or try. Even if I worked for equity-only and the company was ridiculously successful, there's too many ways to get cheated. The same type of person who would ask me to work for equity-only is the same type of person who would cheat me if the business is successful. As a minority shareholder, there's too many ways to get cheated. Why would I work for equity only, when I can make $5/month working on my blog? My effective blogging salary is approximately $0.10/hr, which is $0.10/hr more than I'd ever get in an equity-only job.

The ideal scenario would be to find a promising startup and join as one of the early technical employees, and write version 1.0 of their product by myself. No such opportunity has come up. For every next-Google, there's 10,000+ fools with a stupid business plan and some VC connections. Moving is not an option; I might have more success in Silicon Valley. I'm staying in NYC.

Paradoxically, being too skilled makes it hard to find a wage slave job. I'm going to be way overqualified for any job I can actually get. The only way out is to start your own business, on-the-books or agorist-style. That isn't easy.

The New Delicious Sucks!

At one time, Delicious was a useful tool. It was purchased by Yahoo. Yahoo's clueless executives did nothing with it, introducing zero useful new features.

Google is also mismanaging Blogger. While WordPress is heavily updated, Blogger is stagnating. Google has introduced two useful new features in the 4+ years I've been using Blogger. They introduced post queuing, and comment spam filtering. I'm looking forward to switching to WordPress and my own domain and my own Linode.

Yahoo's executives realized they wasted their money buying a website they didn't know how to run. They decided to either shut it down or sell it. A group of investors, including YouTube's founders, bought Delicious from Yahoo.

They promised to finally upgrade and improves Delicious. Their new version finally went live yesterday. It's a POS. They removed all the useful features that I liked.

Here's a press release announcing the new delicious.

Here's a comment that shows what geniuses these people are:

The list of organized tags in the right side is now gone, replaced with a search navigation tool.

You're making me search to find my bookmarks now? Great. I'll use Google instead. The tag list was one of the desirable features.

Also, they don't support more than 10 links on one tag or page. That kills any usability.

What geniuses decided "Let's fill up the page with whitespace! That'll make it more usable?"

Let's see. Which design do I prefer?

---

Design #1:

Link #1 {tags} {edit tools}
Link #2 {tags} {edit tools}
Link #3 {tags} {edit tools}

---

Design #2:

Link #1

{tags}

{edit tools}

Link #2

{tags}

{edit tools}

Link #3

{tags}

{edit tools}

---

Come on you twits. Can't you see that design #1 is much better than design #2?

Luckily, I found the "export tool" and downloaded my bookmarks file to my PC.

(BTW, the "new Blogger UI" also has the same "too much whitespace flaw". If Google forces the new UI on me, I may give up on Blogger also.)

Summarizing the flaws in the new Delicious:

1. They removed the right hand side tag list. If you're making me search to find my bookmarks, I'll just use Google.
2. They don't support more than 10 links on one page.
3. They are using way too much whitespace in their page design.

That's it for delicious. RIP. At one time, I tried Google Bookmarks and one or two others. They also sucked.

I'm just hand-editing some HTML files and using Firefox's bookmark feature. After one day, I'm noticing that hand-editing HTML is better than delicious was.

There's another bonus of hand-edited HTML. I have control over the order in which my bookmarks are displayed. I can make sub-groupings. Delicious only supports sort-by-name or sort-by-date.

I may check back again in a few months to see if they fixed things. For now, I'm done with delicious. It's now clearly inferior to hand-edited HTML files and Firefox's default bookmark feature.

Homeland Security And Copyright

This story is interesting.

The Department Of Homeland Security is prosecuting people for copyright infringement. WTF? When did Homeland Security change its mission from "Get violent terrorists?" to "Stop people from sharing movies and music"?

The State says "We need more spying power to stop violent criminals." In reality, this power is used to protect profits for corporate insiders.

The correct answer is "Intellectual property is not a valid form of property." It's pure corruption capitalism, when "homeland security" is enforcing intellectual property, rather than chasing violent mass-murderers.

That's the problem with expanding State spying power. The official reason is "terrorism". Those powers have been abused.

As another example, the Patriot Act's "sneak and peek" search clause was used for drug dealers 100x more than for terrorists.

The problem is not "Collecting information is evil!" The problem is that government will use that information for evil politically-motivated purposes. If State insiders could be trusted to use their spying power only for legitimate purposes, it would be OK for them to collect information. The State has a monopoly. They will inevitably use their spying power for evil rather than to stop real crime.

State insiders claim they need more spying power to stop criminals. Then, they use those powers to crack down on things that aren't real crimes. In these examples, State spying power was abused to enforce copyright and the "War on Drugs". Copyright is not a valid form of property. It is wrong that certain substances are forbidden, with long prison terms for possession.

The "War on Drugs" and "War on File Sharing" cannot be enforced without invading people's privacy. Those laws cannot be enforced without unreasonable search and seizure. If a law can only be enforced by spying on people all the time, then it isn't a valid law.

Lies And UBS' $2B Loss

Kweku Adoboli was blamed/scapegoated for $2B in losses by UBS. More details have emerged, including an "official explanation" for the losses. Here are some links that question the "official explanation" of events.

The "official story" is that Kweku Adoboli entered fake trades into UBS' computers, to hide his losses.

There's one flaw in the "official explanation". It makes absolutely no sense.

If you have any knowledge of bank clearing and settlement, the "official explanation" makes no sense.

Kweku Adoboli had real losses on his trades. He had fake gains that offset the losses. Adoboli was trading liquid ETFs and currencies and index futures. They actively trade and have prices quoted daily.

UBS should have had mark-to-market gains and margin calls, on the fake trades. It is *IMPOSSIBLE* that UBS ignored the missing payment. Banks don't forget to collect collateral and margin on large trades.

Adoboli was only authorized to hedge. If a customer bought S&P futures, then Adoboli would go and buy the matching index future or basket of stocks. Adoboli's position should have been hedged at all times. By entering fake trades, Adoboli created the impression that he was hedged, even though he was gambling on market moves.

Initially, Adoboli had small losses. He made bigger and bigger bets, to try to get back to even. He kept making the wrong moves, buying high and selling low. When you're gambling with others people's money, and there's no accountability, you can lose a lot!

If UBS lost $2B, then some other traders have $2B in windfall profits! It is possible that a trader could intentionally dump losses to a confederate. According to the "official explanation", that didn't happen in this case.

To lose $2B, Adoboli needed positions of $10B-$20B+. There's no way that a trader can make a $1M+ trade, without his boss noticing and approving. Adoboli's boss and boss' boss had to notice and approve his trades.

However, my now-ex-empolyer's computers had an interesting defect. If a DBA edited the database, nobody would ever know. (I suspected that some dishonest DBAs were actually doing this.) However, to pull that off, Adoboli would have needed the DBA password *AND* several other people complicit in helping cover his tracks. Adoboli was promoted from the back office to trading. Even if Adoboli still had his back office password, he would have needed help from others to commit fraud.

If I were advising Adoboli's lawyer, there's a clear path to acquittal or a favorable plea-bargain. Adoboli's lawyer should emphasize all the ways that UBS' risk managers failed miserably. UBS should allow a lenient plea-bargain. They don't want a public display of their gross negligence. Adoboli's lawyer should threaten to totally embarrass UBS' risk managers, if they insist on a trial.

That's the fallacy in the "official explanation". Allegedly, Adoboli made fake trades to hide his losses. UBS should have made mark-to-market and margin calls on the fake positions. How could they have missed that? The official lie makes absolutely no sense.

Annoying Android Gmail Feature - Password Change

I'm noticing lots of little annoying UI flaws in my Android phone.

I changed my gmail password from the web client. I do this occasionally, for security.

The phone didn't register that I changed my password. The phone gmail client stopped updating, but didn't display an error.

I found a workaround. Click on "load more messages". That forced the phone to connect, and notice that the password was no longer current. Only then, did it prompt me to re-enter my new password.

That was annoying. I like the Android phone overall. There's lots of little places where the UI shows a lack of polish.

Blogger On Android - All Apps Suck

I tried using Blogger from my new Android Droid 3 phone.

My conclusions is "All the Blogger Android apps suck."

First, I tried the official Google app. It didn't have the ability to queue posts for later publishing. It didn't have the ability to moderate comments.

I tried Blogger-droid by Anders Hedstrom. It wouldn't go to landscape move when I opened my keyboard. I didn't investigate further.

I tried Blogaway. That also didn't have the ability to queue posts. It had a clunky UI.

Technically, I can moderate comments via gmail, by clicking on the moderation link. However, not being able to queue posts for later is a dealbreaker for me. I can't use any of these Android Blogger clients.

If I can't queue a post for later publishing, I might as well write the post in jota text editor, and transfer the post to my blog when I get home. All of those "Android Blogger" clients were inferior to "text editor plus transfer it later".

The WordPress Android client is orders of magnitude ahead of the Blogger client. Maybe I should switch to WordPress. I might get the Android SDK and Blogger API and write my own client.

It's very annoying. Google's support for Blogger has been abysmal.