Constant Conservative

By now, we are all somewhat familiar with Bernard (Bernie) Madoff:

Bernard Madoff, who stands accused of bilking sophisticated investors out of $50 billion, is reported to have told two of his executives that his business was “a giant Ponzi scheme.”

Though he was working with a large sum of money (by most people’s standards), there was and is a group which is working “magic” with much larger sums of money:

By now we all know the government does not invest our payroll taxes and pay our benefits with the profits our money earns. In the beginning, writes economic historian Charlotte Twight in “Dependent on D.C.”, Americans were told Social Security was an insurance program. But the government was unable to sustain that bald lie.

In reality, our money, rather than being invested and kept in an actual “trust fund,” is immediately given to current retirees in Social Security benefits or to their healthcare providers in Medicare benefits. The government’s promise to pay for your retirement pension and medical care is just a promise. And a lie.

[...]

The money just won’t be there. In the next 75 years Social Security and Medicare have a combined unfunded liability of $40.3 trillion. Social Security’s problems get most of the attention, but Medicare will be the killer. At present it accounts for all but $4.3 trillion of the unfunded liability, and as we aging boomers keep demanding new, improved and more expensive medical care, the deficit will only get worse

Without massive changes, the above future will come true. I think it very unlikely that he current Congress will do anything to address the issue of these absolutely mind-blowing future liabilities. No one wants to touch the grandfather of all social programs or its rather-worse-for-wear partner.

Therefore, I have a recommendation. Since Mr. Madoff successfully (from the standpoint of “successfully bamboozled his clients”) ran his scheme for decades before it came crashing down, perhaps he is just the one to who needs to be selected as the new head of the Social Security Administration. After all, he has private sector experience which is germane to public sector needs–and he’s a long-time contributor to liberal causes.

He’s perfect for the job, don’t you think?