What's In A Name?

Alex Tabarrok has found 3 winners of the Nobel prize in economics who have referred to Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme":

Milton Friedman, not too surprising. Paul Samuelson, surprising to me, but he sounds a bit jocular. And Paul Krugman, very surprising to me, who refers to it as having a "Ponzi game aspect."

Tabarrok concludes:

Social Security is not necessarily a Ponzi scheme but it only generated massive returns in the past because of its Ponzi-like aspects. The Ponzi-like aspects are now over and social security is turning into what is essentially a forced savings/welfare program with, as Krugman recognizes, crummy returns for average workers. Social security is thus a Ponzi scheme which has not gone bust but it has gone flat.

The best laid Ponzi schemes
end up as broken dreams.