A Litany Of Lies From The Bald-Headed Buzzard From Wyoming

Remember, Social Security was set up as a retirement program: it was deliberately not set up as a welfare program (Roosevelt nixed the idea of means-testing for precisely that reason, because successful-labeling Social Security as a welfare program is the first step to killing it, and means-testing is the first step to labeling it as a welfare program.) Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. (Ponzis schemes hinge on recruitment, so if it's a Ponzi scheme, where's the recruitment? Are older people encouraging younger people to age faster? And please, leave Denny's 55-and-older menu out of this!) And it completely figures that Simpson gives this talk to the financial industry buzzards, who are waiting to sweep in any second and thieve away trillions of dollars of retirement money already paid into the system, in order to feather their own nests. Simpson lies about the life-expectancy statistics too! It's almost impossible to pack so many lies and distortions into such a small number of sentences. I'm sure he has almost no competition with such deliberate and artful lie-packing. He's ventured out onto Hitler-level terrain here. One evil, rich, wrinkly 80-year-old man!:

WASHINGTON -- Alan Simpson’s cold relationship with AARP is no secret, but the former Republican Senator from Wyoming took it to a new level Friday. At an event hosted by the Investment Company Institute, Simpson delighted the finance industry audience members by aiming a rude gesture at the leading lobby for senior citizens.

Financial and investment interests have long been supportive of Simpson’s broad critique of Social Security, since privatizing the old-age and disability support program would be a tremendous boon for Wall Street’s financial managers. ICI represents mutual funds and other money managers who control more than $13 trillion in assets.

Simpson’s forceful gesture came after an extended diatribe against Social Security, which he said is a "Ponzi" scheme, "not a retirement program.”

Simpson argued that Social Security was originally intended more as a welfare program.

"It was never intended as a retirement program. It was set up in ‘37 and ‘38 to take care of people who were in distress -- ditch diggers, wage earners -- it was to give them 43 percent of the replacement rate of their wages. The [life expectancy] was 63. That’s why they set retirement age at 65” for Social Security, he said.