Ponzi schemes

I have blogged about Ponzi schemes before and noted the similarities between illegal Ponzi schemes and the way national Insurance works in the UK. Back in October 2008 I blogged

"What interests me is that the UK is as a whole part of an enormous ponzi scheme. How else can you describe the public sector state pension scheme that operates in the UK? This scheme does not work by people paying their "stamps" into a fund, as many still believe, it works by paying current retirees out of current workers' contributions. As the numerical balance between retired and working changes over the next 10 years I expect to see more resistance to this method of funding, maybe that is what the stock of Tasers will be used to sort out.... "

A year earlier I had blogged when snap-election fever was at its height :

"The best the Conservatives can hope for is to leave Gordon Brown with a very small overall majority and so to limp on as a damaged Prime Minister for a few years as his Ponzi Scheme economy crashes around him, utterly destroying his reputation for competence. As I have blogged before, just like 1992, this is the General Election to lose."

In December I blogged about City Unslicker's scary remarks that:

"Mr Brown is still at large and it is feared the last part of his scheme may still be to come. Allegedly, Brown is unhappy that some money still remains outside of the scheme. He plans a final assault on the Pound Sterling. This paper currency has been in circulation for hundreds of years and is an unsuspecting victim of the Scheme. Interest rates will again be dropped, a 'run on the pound' will lead to hyper-inflation and the remaining money outside of The Scheme will have become worthless. Everything and everyone will be subservient to Mr Brown."

Anyone still willing to argue that Gordon Brown has no such plan, subconscious or otherwise?


Today I read in The Times that Dominic lawson has caught up with us:

"I’m sorry to ruin your weekend but I believe you are the victim of a gigantic financial fraud. This does not mean that you are a holder of one of Antigua-based Sir Allen Stanford’s certificates of deposit, which the US Securities and Exchange Commission alleges were sold on an entirely false prospectus. Nor am I referring to the victims of Bernard Madoff. The British public has been unaffected by that gargantuan Ponzi scheme, which was marketed almost entirely in North America. Yet here in the UK we have our own fraudulent scheme, on a scale dwarfing even Madoff’s operations - and it is run by the British government.

This racket is divided into two distinct operations: one is called the National Insurance scheme and the other is usually referred to as the public sector pension scheme. The National Insurance scheme has remarkable affinities with the Ponzi mechanism. That is to say, the participants seem on the surface to be investing money that will ultimately pay for their future (state) pension. In fact, however, you will not be receiving a return on your investment during 40 years of dutiful contributions while in employment. Instead you will get money - at the rate, currently, of a measly £90 a week - that is simply what the government is prepared to release out of the inflow from newer contributors to the scheme.

In two particular ways National Insurance corresponds to the classic elements of the Ponzi scheme: it involves, first, a transfer from new participants to older ones and, second, a deliberate obscuring of the true nature of the transaction. “Investors” are sent a record of their contributions, with the false implication that your future benefits are related to how much you have paid in taxes. In other words, like the Madoff scheme, it looks as though you are an investor, when in fact you are just a donor to earlier contributors. Unlike in the Madoff Ponzi, however, your “investments” are not solicited; they are compulsory. Or, to put it another way, this is a tax masquerading as an insurance scheme. "

Do read the rest of Dominic Lawson's article and wonder at how long it takes the "dead tree press" to catch up with the "blogosphere".