[I could and probably should do full posts on all three of these, but I still haven’t finished my promised Musk Derangement post, and I fear these items will be left neglected if I don’t cover them right away.]
1. President Trump signed an order beginning the process of eliminating the Dept. of Education and folding its essential functions back into other departments. Good. An act of Congress will be necessary to complete the dismantling, but if there is anyone with an honest, rational, statistically sound argument for why this Department should not go away, I haven’t heard or read it yet. The data is pretty damning: U.S. kids are doing much worse now than when the department was begun under President Carter. Post hoc ergo propter hoc and all that, but still, it’s hard to argue that a federal department overseeing an area that has deteriorated under its watch over almost 50 years has a case for continuing. Never mind. The Axis is freaking out anyway. Someone really ought to tell them that occasionally admitting that the President has done something responsible and justified might do wonders for their credibility.
2. Elon Musk said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, also known as a pyramid scheme. Of course it is a Ponzi scheme. My father, who worked in the private pension field for a couple of decades, identified Social Security as a Ponzi scheme in the 1970s. The base of the Social Security pyramid is rapidly getting to the point where it won’t provide enough funds to support the top of the pyramid. That’s when things fall apart: ask Bernie Madoff. And yet, that esteemed factchecking organization, PolitiFact, claimed that Musk’s characterization was false, even after it conceded that the program’s “forecast isn’t good”:
“American life expectancy has increased since Social Security’s creation, and so has the number of eligible recipients. As workers of the baby boom generation (born from 1946 to 1964) enter retirement, fewer workers are paying into the system. At the current pace, Social Security’s trust funds won’t be able to pay 100% of benefits by 2035, the 2024 Social Security Trustees Report said. The trustees have issued similar warnings for more than a decade.”
Yes...because it’s a Ponzi scheme. But it’s not technically a Ponzi scheme, see, sayeth reliable Democratic Party defender Politifact because..
- “Social Security is not fraudulent.” [Well, that’s a matter of opinion.]
- “Social Security’s operators do not take a cut” [A pyramid scheme cheats latecomers; it doesn’t have to benefit the operator]
- “Social Security is operated in the open.” [Right. It’s obviously a Ponzi scheme, but its adherents keep denying that fact.]
- “Social Security has built-in oversight.” [Whatever that means….]
- “Social Security offers realistic returns.” [It now offers returns in excess of what the recipients put into the system.]
- “If financially stressed, Social Security is able to adjust its funding or benefit streams.” [Except that doing so is virtually impossible politically.]
In other words, Social Security isn’t a Ponzi scheme because it’s run by the government and not by a crook. The process, however, is the same regardless of who runs it. Essentially, PolitiFact is arguing that the program is fine because it is run with good intentions.
3. The New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in that state, struck down a 2021 law passed by the New York City Council that authorized non-citizens to vote in local elections if they entered in the U.S. legally . “Whatever the future may bring, the New York Constitution as it stands today draws a firm line restricting voting to citizens,” Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals Rowan D. Wilson wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division insofar as appealed from should be modified, without costs, in accordance with this opinion and, as so modified, affirmed.” It was a 6-1 decision, and if anyone can explain the logic of the one dissenter (guess what party?) I will be eternally grateful. Judge Jenny Rivera argued that Article IX of the New York State Constitution and the Municipal Home Rule Law grant localities broad authority to structure their own governments and elections to enhance accountability and serve the unique needs of their residents. “The majority’s holding relies on a reading of Article II, section 1 that ignores its plain text,” she wrote. “That provision guarantees that ‘every citizen shall be entitled to vote’ if they meet certain age and residency requirements. It is a declaration of an affirmative right that does not prohibit localities from exercising their home rule authority to enfranchise noncitizens.” Oh…WHAT? How can a provision that says “every citizen shall be entitled to vote” be found to mean that non-citizens can vote? Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO, New York Immigration Coalition, said the ruling was “a devastating setback for voting rights” (Non-citizens have no voting rights, you idiot).
Ethics Alarms 
“Someone really ought to tell them that occasionally admitting that the President has done something responsible and justified might do wonders for their credibility.”
Heh!
PWS
Paging Senator Schumer….
-Jut
(By the way, I believe Schumer made the right move. I have not heard that he has really defended himself well; the focus of coverage has been the attacks on him. He should have emphasized that his vote helped keep his party from becoming even more of a mess—and he should make that point decisively.)
Of course. His mistake was bluffing when he should have known his bluff would be called. He had no choice. But his defense has been weak.
“But his defense has been weak.“
By comparison, Lefty’s reaction to Schumer’s efforts have been…um…consistent and…er spirited…
PWS
From http://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2025/social-security-ponzi-scheme-elon-musk-joe-rogan/
Although Social Security and Ponzi schemes have some superficial similarities, experts told PolitiFact that crucial differences undercut the comparison.
“Social Security is a transparent, legally mandated, government program that can remain solvent through adjustments to both funds flowing into the system and flowing out of the system,” said Eric R. Brisker, finance department chair of the University of Akron’s College of Business.
Translation: It is not a Ponzi scheme because government is running the scam and it can force people to pay more into it because it can jail you and the government can cut your benefits in half if it so chooses. However, it will only choose to cut benefits if the number or recipients are substantially less than the ones that would be required to pay and it cannot impose a debt obligation on future generations. Otherwise, promised payments will continue because current children and those unborn cannot vote. Thus, it is not a Ponzi scheme.
Seems to me that force requirement is an added feature to this type of fraud. So If Charles Ponzi had been to force people into the buying of international postal stamps or been able to borrow money that obligates others to pay it back all would have been good.
The article then then contradicts itself by quoting a Social Security specialist.
How does Social Security work?
Some Americans may envision Social Security as a program where their payroll tax dollars are held for them, awaiting the time they retire and begin drawing on those dollars for their own benefits. But that’s not how it works.
The Social Security system, which started in 1935, works on a “pay-as-you-go” basis that transfers current workers’ payroll tax payments to people who are already retired.
“The vast majority of those taxes have always been paid out immediately from the young to the old, with the promise that tomorrow’s old will in turn receive benefits covered by the taxes paid by tomorrow’s young,” said Eugene Steuerle, a fellow and Social Security specialist at the Urban Institute think tank.
This structure has some similarities to how new Ponzi scheme investors provide payouts to earlier investors.
“If there are no longer enough workers to provide enough payroll tax contributions to pay out benefits to retired workers, then the system would fail similar to how a Ponzi scheme would fail in the same manner,” Brisker said.
The thing that gets left out of discussions on Social Security is government produced inflation. Mrs. OB and I get a ridiculous amount of money from the SSA every month. Sure, we paid in a lot over our working lives but come on. But of course, when I got my first paycheck at Kendall Radiator in the summer of 1968 and a bunch of the money I thought I’d earned that week was missing from the check Leon wrote for me on Saturday morning was gone, I was making the princely sum of $1.25 per hour for pulling radiators out of cars and driving around town picking up and delivering other ones. Those 1968 dollars were actually worth something. Since then, our elected officials have been printing so much money, the minimum wage is more than ten times greater. That’s the Ponzi Scheme the government is running. Everybody’s a millionaire now. Bull shit. Those are 2025 dollars which are pathetic. We might as well be living in the Weimar Republic. Gas at three dollars a gallon rather than thirty cents a gallon? Give me a break. As my college roommate’s summer landscaping job boss used to tell him in his fractured German: “Iss not prosperity, iss FLATION!”
The returns on our Social Security withholdings is much lower that the average returns from the stock market. Let’s assume that we would have invested the amount currently withheld for Social Security ourselves, e.g. in the S&P 500, we would be financially better off in retirement. This of course assumes that we this money would indeed be invested wisely. When I was thirty, my view was that we do not need Social Security, just let me invest the money myself, as I would mostly do a better job than the government. I was in favor of reforming it, or get rid of it. Now I am retired, I am much interested in reform of Social Security as long as I am alive, as I want to get out of the system what I was to forced to put in. Am I wrong to assume that the real reason that Social Security exists if for the people who lack the financial discipline to save and invest for their retirement, or have an unreasonable fear for the stock market?
We appreciate your work on these issues, Jack and I know you don’t mind us pointing out a key typo or two here and there. Am I reading this incorrectly or is the following a typo
… but if there is anyone with an honest, rational, statistically sound argument for why this Department should go away, I haven’t heard or read it yet.
Typo. Dumb. Fixed. Leaving out “no” and “not” is a lifetime problem for me. I lost a few points on my thesis because of it: my brain adds the missing words. Thanks.
Rare is the response in these forums – or really any writing, for that matter – where I don’t commit the same offense. I hope my malady – like yours – is a sign that our brains are still functioning at a high level and we continue to out-think our hands.
I hope that…
That is not the argument actually presented. She’s not saying it gives non-citizens the right to vote, only that it does not preclude them from also being allowed to vote, and that the majority was wrong to read an exclusion into it.
A (citzenship) implies B (allowed to vote) does not mean that Not-A implies Not-B. I’m not sure formal logic is the best way to go, but it at least makes sense to me.
I think it’s wrong for the local authorities to allow them to vote… but that doesn’t make it actually incompatible with the quoted clause. I haven’t read the rest of the decision, and can’t confirm that the majority relies entirely on over-interpreting that clause the way she claimed though.
How does dissolving the physical DoEd but maintaining its separate missions in different departments fix anything other than clear out some bureaucrats?
If the functions of the department still exist wherever they now are, isn’t the problem still there?
Wouldn’t it take an act of congress to undo the individual functions?
However, our failing education system is only half the fault of the education system. Of all government functions, education is genuinely a team effort between educators and parents.
And while I’m impressed by fewer modern educators than I was by educators of yesteryear- I’m also less impressed by the parents who increasingly do little in their children’s lives that would “back up” the teachers, re-emphasize the lessons, encourage scholarship and curiosity, or lay the groundwork that only parents can lay for their children’s academic success.
That’s an even harder problem to fix than the broken education system which itself will be plenty hard to fix while throughly under command of progressive civilization-eaters.
I taught grade school and high school for three years in the ‘seventies. Most of the parents were on my side, but definitely not all. I think things had already begun to change from the ‘fifties and ‘sixties when I was sitting in the little desks rather than the big one.
Getting rid of the Department of Education is good start. But I think it should not stop there? Let me ask a couple of further questions. Why do we need teacher unions? Why do we need public education? Would it not be much better to have the free market take care of all our education needs? Let’s give parents vouchers, and then give them the opportunity to pick the school of their choice. The schools need to compete for the children, and competition would be a good and natural way to improve the quality of education.
The United States may have to look at other countries as example, for instance the country in which I grew up, the Netherlands. In the Netherlands public schools and schools founded on a religious basis (Catholic schools and other Christian schools) are financed the same way. So if send your children to a Christian school you do not have to pay tuition in addition to the taxes to support public education. Also my parents had to become members of the school, and the school board was elected by the members. So no gigantic city of county wide school districts, where parents have barely any influence. Also schools publish test results, which creates transparency to help parents select schools. Also there is less grade inflation in the Netherlands, because testing at the senior years is standardized, and these tests are graded by teachers from other schools who do not have any incentive to inflate the grades.
Another difference between the USA and the Netherlands and Germany is that in the latter countries students are sorted early (age 12) into different tracks, based on aptitude. There are various trade tracks for children with a low aptitude for academic achievement, but who may be good to work a trade, or lower skilled work. At the other end, there is a track for children with a high academic aptitude (Gymnasium, Atheneum). The middle tracks are then for children who map pursue non-trade, non-academic jobs such as nurse, police officer etc.
When I immigrated to the USA I was surprised that college students needed remedial teaching because they could not read and write. Given the poor quality of education in the USA I am not surprised to see so many IT professionals and medical professionals here who are immigrants. The education system in the USA is basically socialist, and socialism does not work.