Dear Reader,
“This might be the biggest fraud in history,” asserts Mr. Musk.
History is to its neck with frauds. Only a fraud of truly stupendous dimensions could overtop them all.
This fraud — evidently — does.
To which fraud does the South African native refer?
The answer is the United States Social Security system.
Mr. Musk and his sleuths have taken the Social Security Administration under scrutiny… in search of accounting boo-boos.
Their initial audits reveal an impossibility.
Huh? How Can This Be?
The number of Social Security enrollees vastly exceeds the number of actual Americans. Mr. Musk:
“Yes, there are FAR more “eligible” social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA.”
How many more?
The latest bean count fixes the United States population near 335 million.
Yet — by Mr. Musk’s calculations — 394 million names populate the Social Security database.
I have it on highest authority that many deceased Americans vote in electoral contests.
I adduce the following image in proof thereof. I captured it myself following the presidential election of 2020:
The deceased vote, I understand, leaned preponderantly in the direction of the Democratic candidate.
Being among the quick… and lacking all telephonic connectivity to the grave… I could not ascertain their motivations.
But let it go. The question of today is, do the deceased collect Social Security cheques?
A Major Math Problem
The records reveal that:
Some 20.79 million Americans aged 100 years or older presently collect Social Security benefits.
Yet — yet — the United States Census Bureau estimates that only 101,000 Americans have ripened to 100 years or older.
That is, the mathematics are in a state of profound misalignment.
The number of centenarian Social Security beneficiaries exceeds the number of actual by a factor nearing 200.
Some Social Security registrants, by Mr. Musk’s calculation, near 150 years of age.
I am unaware of any human entity who has ever attained the sesquicentennial mile marker.
Nor has Mr. Musk. Yet he does concede the slender possibility that such Methuselahs exist:
- Just a cursory examination of Social Security and we’ve got people in there that are about 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that’s 150? I don’t. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records, they’re missing out.
- I think they’re probably dead is my guess, or they should be very famous. One of the two.
A 360-Year Old Is on the Social Security Rolls
I entertain, with fantastic reluctance, the possibility of the 150-year old Social Security registrant.
Yet what of the 220-229-year old cohort? The Social Security Administration informs us that 1,039 of them dwell among us.
May I please see the certificates of birth?
Yet the 220-229-year olds are infants compared to the 360-369-year old Social Security registrant.
According to the Social Security Administration, one such ancient exists.
I do not stretch the facts:
In reality, I hazard the bulking majority of phantom Social Security registrants are illegal United States residents.
The unauthorized Social Security card is their passport to employment and other high privileges afforded the legal resident.
The precise figure I do not know. Yet it is likely handsome.
The Greatest Burden in History
Mr. Musk wonders if the Social Security fraud is the greatest in history.
I do not know if Social Security ranks as the greatest fraud in history.
Yet I maintain that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid rank among the greatest burdens in history — United States history at least.
Some 50% of Americans haul aboard at least one federal benefit. Some 71 million receive Social Security payments. Sixty-eight million are enrolled in Medicare. Medicaid, 72 million.
Five million American households claim housing subsidies.
Some 42 million Americans take “supplemental nutritional assistance.” That is, 42 million Americans take food stamps.
Add the figures together and you discover a fantastic deficit.
The monies going out for these programs exceeds the monies coming in to finance them.
Only during the locust years of the Great Depression — from 1931–36 — did government dolings out exceed taxes coming in… as they do presently.
Is it any wonder then that the nation sags and groans under $36 trillion of debt?
Nonproductive Debt
Alas, vast heaps of this debt is nonproductive debt.
Debt is not what academic men might term a malum in se. That is, debt is not necessarily an evil in itself.
That is because debt can be shoveled into productive pursuits. The proceeds from these productive pursuits can repay the loan by many multiples.
Yet has doddering Uncle Samuel borrowed to invest in a productive American future? No he has not.
He has borrowed largely to satisfy the consumptive needs of the moment.
That money which enters through the front door goes instantly exiting through the back door.
Consider the 1960s…
Merely 15 cents of each government-spent dollar went channeling toward “transfer payments” — that is, channeling from productive hands to nonproductive, consuming hands.
Today the figure approaches a productivity-sapping 50 cents of each dollar spent.
How Can We Justify This?
Do I hector? Do I preach? Do I wag my finger?
I do not. I approach the business with the detached air of the accountant. I merely consult the tables.
And I find them ridden through with ink, red in color.
Resultingly, the United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio rises presently to 125%. That is, the United States heaves up more debt than economic output.
Not since 1946 has the United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio summited such impossible heights.
Scotching Messieurs Hitler and Tojo was expensive business.
And in that context, an extravagantly unbalanced debt-to-GDP ratio — 119% — was an understandable enormity.
Yet where is today’s Hitler? Where is today’s Tojo?
If you attempt to inform us he resides in Moscow I will plug my ears. I will not listen.
The Greatest Default in History
The hour grows late, and the timekeeper is pointing worriedly at his watch.
I depart with the following observation…
United States indebtedness may not represent the greatest fraud in history.
If fraud it is, the United States has defrauded itself.
Yet you may class it among the greatest scandals in history.
And if the business keeps running at the present gait… it will one day represent the greatest default in history.
Regards,
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
