Thomas Sowell:
Unsound Bites
After all the media hype over Governor Rick Perry's having called Social Security "a Ponzi scheme," viewers are no more informed than before as to what specifically is a Ponzi scheme, what are the objections to such schemes, and whether those same objections apply to Social Security.
Even if such questions were answered, we would still not have weighed the alternatives to Social Security. Serious issues like that cannot be covered in sound bites or with "gotcha" questions from the media.
The above was a follow up to a previous column:
The 'Ponzi' sound bite
Many in the media and in politics have gone ballistic over the fact that Texas Gov. Rick Perry called Social Security "a Ponzi scheme."
Although many act shocked, shocked, as if Rick Perry had said something unthinkable, Gov. Perry is not even among the first thousand people to call Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Not only conservatives, but even some liberals, have been calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme for decades.
Moreover, neither the media nor the politicians who are carrying on over the use of the words "Ponzi scheme" show the slightest interest in any hard facts that would tell us whether Social Security is or is not a Ponzi scheme. It is a "gotcha" moment, and that is apparently what some people live for.
What makes this nonsense become fraud is the insinuation that calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme means advocating that people who are depending on Social Security be abandoned and left with nothing to live on in their retirement years. That is the big scare – and the big lie.
People getting Social Security checks are going to keep on getting those checks. Nobody has advocated anything else, or would dare to cut off a financial lifeline for millions of people.
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