Social Security Outrage: Senior Citizens Are Being Cheated by Government

(CHICAGO) - Former vice-president and presidential candidate Al Gore famously repeated that Social Security is in a "lock box." Actually nothing could be further from the truth.

From its inception under the Roosevelt Administration, the Social Security system has been nothing but a government sponsored Ponzi scheme. To work it relied on each successful generation being larger than the last. Eventually, like an illegal chain letter, it had to implode.

And the implosion has occurred.

Despite the media reporting that the Social Security Administration will be broke within a few years, it's actually broke now. And the sad fact is, it's been broken for a long time—kept on life support by back room dealing, arm-twisting, smoke and mirrors and winks and nods.

A frightening statistic: the unfounded debt of Social Security and Medicare is now projected out as approaching $130 trillion. That's ten times the entire GDP of the United States at the peak of the last economic expansion.

As with any scheme that is based on fraud, to keep it going requires more schemes on top of schemes. Layer upon layers of schemes. Until the whole sorry mess comes crashing down. Ask Bernie Madoff how it's done.

The government's latest scheme with social security

According to the SSA's own statistics, roughly 58 million Americans are receiving Social Security checks. For the second time in two years they've been informed that no cost of living increase will be granted because according to the numbers being churned out by a few government agencies and the private Federal Reserve Bank the annual inflation rate is virtual nil.

It's an outright lie and based on numbers that have been massaged into looking real.

Is the real inflation rate zero?

Much of the major news media—as many Americans are coming to realize—is in bed the federal government. Once news journalists were true watchdogs over the public till and promoters of good government. But no longer.

Most news organizations have become corporate shills and Americans have paid a dear price for the unholy alliance.

John Williams* of American Business Analytics & Research LLC, has meticulously compiled the real number for inflation and it's more than just eye-popping, it's infuriating.

Williams explains that the actual US rate of inflation "reflects our estimate of inflation for today as if it were calculated the same way it was in 1990." In other words, the index uses the same methodology that was in use twenty years ago. the result is an accurate

Actual inflation rate just under 10 percent View chart here.

Using the same calculations and weighted average to calculate the current annual inflation rate as that employed 20 years ago the number comes in just under a whopping 10 percent. Anyone that shops for food, buys gasoline or purchases almost any other good or service (except, perhaps electronics) knows that some inflation is occurring. Few know the actual rate.

Meanwhile the federal government and the Federal Reserve both claim that inflation is virtually non-existent. They have denied any increase in Social Security benefits to retirees based on numbers they know are misleading.

This has been a work in progress stretching back several decades. The net affect is 58 million Social Security recipients are been shafted so the government can save untold billions. Are you, or one of your family members one of them?

This is a monstrous act: balancing the books on the backs of those that can least afford it.

. . .

* John Williams' bio: Walter J. "John" Williams was born in 1949. He received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar.

Actual inflation chart.

Terrence Aym is a Salem-News.com Contributor based in Chicago, who is well known nationally for his stirring reports on the top ranked site, helium.com. Born in Minnesota, Terrence Aym grew up in the Chicagoland suburbs. Having traveled to 40 of the 50 states and lived in 7 of them, Aym is no stranger to travel. He's also spent time in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and Western Africa. An executive for many years with Wall Street broker-dealer firms, Aym has also had a life-long interest in science, technology, the arts, philosophy and history. If it's still possible to be a 'Renaissance man' in the 21st Century, Aym is working hard to be one.

Aym has several book projects in the works. Media sites that have recently featured Aym, and/or discussed his articles, include ABC News, TIME Magazine, Business Insider, Crunchgear.com, Discover, Dvice, Benzinga and more recently, his work has been showing up in South Africa and Russia.