Ponzi scheme: A
Ponzi scheme is a
fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned. The Ponzi scheme usually offers returns that other investments cannot guarantee in order to entice new investors, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
According to this definition SS is a ponzi scheme. If everyone quit paying right now - do you think it would be funded adequately to get the money out that you put in (and your employer matched).
We are forced to contribute and at the end the Government hands the money out on their terms - how much and when you get it. Imagine if you had had that money the whole time to invest - at the end it's yours and you make the decisions what to do with it. Spend it all, or not, or jeez even pass some on to your kids!