The President wants to modify the present Social Security system. Congress wants to debate it. Everyone seems to agree that something has to be done to save it. Well, almost everyone.

The plain and simple truth about "Social Security" is that it represents a kind of pyramid scheme, conceived by the government because it believes people are much too incompetent to manage their own money, or even to hire someone else who is competent, to manage it for them. The irony here comes from the fact that the U.S. government's bid to manage money via this program renders Uncle Scam subject to just that criticism.

If you listen carefully when congressmen (oops "congress PERSONS") describe the social security program, it becomes obvious fairly quickly that more money goes into the system than comes out in the form of payments FROM the system. This means that, inevitably, some generation will be one chair short when the music finally stops.

Those who get in early will get their money back (minus a huge bite taken out of it via the cumulative effect of inflation), but even that money could have earned a much higher percentage return had it been invested in relatively safe-but-smart places. For instance, some corporate bonds are VERY safe and pay 4-5 times what retirees will have gotten from the government Social Security payments. This means they EASILY could have doubled, perhaps even quadrupled their money by the time it is paid out to them. But this won't happen in the U.S. government's "forced savings program."

The rule of 72 indicates that to figure out how long it will take your money to double (in years), you simply divide your percentage interest rate into the number 72. So, with a decent stock, at 8% interest, the investor could double his money in about 9 years; at 4% it would take 18 years to double (approximately), and so on.

But at some pittance like the 1% that the social security program pays out, retirees are essentially being ripped off. Inflation runs higher than this every year, meaning that the longer you leave your money in a social security retirement account, the more of your savings you will lose over time. The loss is virtually certain.

Moreover, as with all pyramid schemes, those who get into the action too late, get only part of the money they put in, or none at all. That is what will happen with "social security." This makes it merely a form of theft, which, as a pyramid scheme, has been outlawed in the United States.

Some have argued that the social security system really acts more like a Ponzi scheme than a pyramid scheme; others think it simply to economics what Disney characters are to the real world. You say either,I say Eisner.

The point is, if YOU try to do something like this program on your own (with other people's money) and you will go away for a long time, courtesy the FBI. But when the U.S. fed does it, well, "It's for your own good." Bottom line: We do not need to save the social security system; we need to save Americans FROM it.

Now when one steals money from another, but has a pang of conscience and seeks to repay it (without coercion from others), the Bible stipulates that the money should be paid back in full to the payors (i.e. victims),with 20% added to the principal. The fifth commandment (honor thy father and thy mother) requires that the eldest (those who have paid into the system the longest) should receive repayment first (from the social security system) at the just-mentioned rate until this economic nightmare goes away. The same goes for medi-scare.

Finally, the Bible nowhere grants the right to a government to take money from its citizens in order to force them into a retirement program that manages their money very badly. In any biblical loan, the borrower is required to put up security -- some form of collateral -- against the money borrowed, so as to prevent himself from stealing his neigbor's good by presuming upon the future unsuccessfully. No such liquid asset backs the social security system.

Romans 13 makes clear the point that "All authority that exists comes from God." And He never appointed governments to collect and administer forced savings programs. Thus, voters should simply abolish the program and take back what they have earned, and that which is properly theirs: the responsibility and privilege of managing their own economic destiny.