While Social Security is indeed set up as a forced Ponzi Scheme that is reliant on finding an ever-growing pool of “investors” in order to be “sustainable,” the major problem with Social Security is the poor rate of return that it provides for recipients. The following video is one of the best I’ve seen explaining why Social Security is a poor investment and what can be done to improve it (hint, fiddling with chained CPI is not the answer):
Recalling the firestorm of criticism that erupted during the Bush administration when there was just TALK of privatizing social security, I am dubious that the public would go for full privatization. A very conservative alternative would be to mandate that social security taxes be used for the purchase of TIPS (treasury inflation protected securities) with a guaranteed annual return of 2% + cpi inflation.An individual account would be set up for the individual taxpayer who would have a VESTED interest in the TIPS in his account. That is, the account would be owned by the individual taxpayer.. If the account were not exhausted by the time of the taxpayer’s death, the balance of the account could be passed by will or intestate succession to whomever the taxpayer wanted.
That is one potentially politically-viable solution. I agree with you, at this point the political will is simply not there. Thankfully, I’m not a politician. Neither is RGF, so we get to propose ideas that are RIGHT and make the most sense without having to adhere to political reality quite so closely.
You might look at Jose Pinera’s information on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVmCdS57xqw
This is one of several that he did in English and Spanish about social security.