Now I'm reassured about Social Security

Jack Coffee, professor of law and securities law expert at Columbia University, quoted in a story in USA Today:  "Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme because it wasn't an intentional fraud."

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, 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 to keep the scheme going." -- Wikipedia

"Good intentions" seems to be a common excuse for disastrous Liberal Democrat policies.