Social Security is a Ponzi scheme

I would like to point out first that I will not respond to the video as it is not included in the pre-allotted 8000 character limit. This is simply an unfair way to get more information while not taking up character space. First of all, my opponent accuses me of confusing savings and investments. I did none of the kind. Payment into Social Security is by definition an investment as you are forgoing current consumption for a possibly greater (or lesser) amount of future consumption (1). Second, my opponent says that a government should not act like a business and therefore not make a profit. This is in itself, subjective. However, a critical part of a Ponzi Scheme is that no real profit is made, only fraudulent "profit. " Establishing this criteria (which my opponent agreed to) when deciding whether Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme is essential. These points are relatively unimportant and irrelevant to the point at hand. I do not wish that we spend any more time bickering on these useless subjects.1. Money is transferred from one party to another party via the governmentMy opponent objections to the fact that money is not transferred can be covered in two points:1. The government never really has money.2. The government didn't "get" the money from anywhere. My opponent makes the claim since that the government simply puts money into a person's account, no actual money is being transferred because the government never really has the money. This is false. Money is an object whether it is electronic or physical. The government does not have separate accounts for each person using the SS system. Instead, they use a large trust fund called the OASI Trust Fund (2). When the government wants to give money from to a retiree from the trust fund, it withdraws money and sends it periodically to the recipients. It transfers money from the trust fund to the individuals. Now the question becomes, where does it get the money? My opponent claims that the government never really has the money in the first place because it can get almost unlimited money from taxes. This is a fallacy of composition. My opponent infers that since money can be produced in almost everlasting amounts via either taxes or the operation of a Fractional Reserve Banking system, money cannot be a literal object. This is a logical fallacy. To get the money into the OASI Trust Funds, the government taxes money from investors via the payroll tax. Simply because it can tax almost unlimited does not mean that it doesn't really have the money. No physicality does not equal no existence. The money is electronically stored and transferred from the OASI Trust Funds to the recipients (2). Since we've established that the money into the trust funds is received through payroll taxation (3), a transfer of payments is surely to follow. The government taxes people money, and then puts it into the trust fund for reallocation. Also, a definition of the Transfer of Payments from one of the most credible sources for investment information (Investopedia) states this:Transfer Payments: Transfer payments are made by the U. S. Federal Government to individuals through programs such as Social Security, Welfare and Veteran's benefits (4). Social Security is a transfer both from the government to the individual, and therefore from the individual to the individual via the government as previously explained.2. Money from new investors is given to old investorsI already addressed this point in C1. Supposed unlimited (this is false. Nothing is unlimited) money of the government does not equate to a lack of transfer payments.3. No or very little profit is madeMy opponent agrees that the government does not turn up a profit on Social Security. In a Ponzi Scheme, no real profit is made (which my opponent agrees to). Therefore, my opponent is conceding this point. It does not matter whether a government program should make a profit as that is irrelevant to the case at hand. No profit or very little profit is made from the Social Security program. Instead, it is just a transfer of payments, like a Ponzi Scheme.4. The scam fails because of a lack of new investorsA Ponzi Scheme fails because of one major flaw: the fact that the ever increasing amount of old investors and the decreasing amount of new investors will cause impossible returns. Eventually, no new investors and money are being pumped into the system, while an ever increasing amount is needed. My opponent claims that Social Security is not a Ponzi Scheme because of the failure of the Dependency Ratio. However, the Dependency Ratio has a stark resemblance to the exact reason of why a Ponzi Scheme fails. The Dependency Ratio is the total amount of non-workers compared to the amount of workers (5). In other words, this can be expressed as the comparison between those who have already been in the labour force, and those who are currently in the labour force. I agree that the DR poses a problem to society. However, the clear resemblance to a Ponzi Scheme is clear. A Ponzi Scheme fails because there are not enough new investors supporting the ever increasing amount of old investors. A high dependency ratio, which ultimately leads to negative impacts to society and the failure of Social Security as outlined in Round 1, is when there are not enough new workers supporting the ever increasing amount of old workers. In essence, my opponent has done my job for me because a desperate DR ratio directly corresponds with the factors that cause a Ponzi Scheme to fail. The DR has been falling since the 1950's. In fact, according to the Senate. Gov, the dependency ratio in 1950 was 70:360, A being the # of workers and B being the # of retirees. This ratio has been falling for the best half century and is currently 70:250 and projected to be 70:125 in 2020 (6). As outlined in Round 1, the DR causes massive problems to SS and its solvency. I am not saying that the problem can be made worse or better with OASI. However, the Social Security system is structured as such that the DR ratio greatly affects it. It's already been established that the DR ratio is similar to what causes a Ponzi Scheme to fail. It also causes Social Security to fail (7) (8) (9). I have successfully established that Social Security is either a Ponzi Scheme, or is very similar to a Ponzi Scheme. Rebuttal to Opponent's ArgumentSocial Security is not fraudulent Assuming a hypothetical government run program (not SS for this example) that functioned exactly like a Ponzi Scheme except for the fact that it is not supposedly fraudulent, wouldn't it be a Ponzi Scheme? Of course. It operates using the same basic principles of a Ponzi Scheme of new contributors paying for old contributors and therefore should be treated as such. Legality does not determine whether something is a Ponzi Scheme. A specific operation can be perfectly legal, but it can be classified as a Ponzi Scheme. If we made Ponzi Schemes legal, they would still retain their criteria for being accepted as Ponzi Schemes. Whether or not it is fraudulent is irrelevant. A Ponzi Scheme is simply a scheme where you take someone's money to "invest" and give them back more later, but the only reason that you can give more later is because more new investors have given you money. This point is rather weak and focuses on attempted semantic exploitation which does not make a good debate in itself. I hope the readers view this point as unsubstantiated as it is. ConclusionIn conclusion, I have successfully demonstrated that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is very similar to such. I would also like to point out that three Nobel Prize winning economists: Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, and Milton Friedman all agree that Social Security is one of the biggest Ponzi Schemes to ever be perpetrated. I note that they all have polar opposite political views. . http://www.debate.org...