Comment by girvo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by girvo | Hacker News Reader

I truly don't get this "BTC is a Ponzi scheme" thing. And "Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme" in the third sentence really doesn't endear me to this writer...

I don't buy it. Yeah, Satoshi owns a stack. But if he sold out, the price would drop so hard it'd make your head spin... and I doubt Satoshi would be able to be rid of all of them in time before they bottom out. The market isn't large enough yet to pull that sort of scheme off.

Now, Bitcoin still seems like a good idea, with an implementation that seems to have some issues, and rampant speculation is going to stop the better ideas that it could embody from happening for a while. But a "Ponzi scheme"? Done deliberately for that reason? You're telling me that Satoshi knew it'd hit $1k per BTC? Pfft.

I agree that BTC is not, but I thought it was fairly well understood that social security was a mandatory Ponzi scheme.

From Wikipedia: "A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from existing capital or new capital paid by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation."

Social security does exactly that, and its recent failure predictions by the CBO are caused by the population failing to grow at rates that could sustain it. If more people aren't paying into it than those withdrawing from it, and it fails as a result, does that not match the definition of a Ponzi scheme?

Social security is a mandatory insurance program, not a mandatory investment program. Like any other insurance program, the solution to shortfall is to increase premiums or decrease payouts.

Since there isn't yet a shortfall that can't be covered by existing funding sources, these solutions have not yet been implemented. Just like a private insurance company.

Social Security is a ponzi scheme. Insurance companies have assets the can fall back on to pay claims, they don't just pay them out of insurance payments as they come in.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardsalsman/2011/09/27/social...

What? Insurance companies primarily finance the payment of claims from premium payments. Doing anything else would indicate an unacceptably high loss ratio and a failing business.

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