Ponzi Scheme

One of today’s top news stories has the following headline: “Madoff to Plead Guilty in Largest U.S. Ponzi Scheme”.

I submit that this headline is incorrect. The largest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. history was perpetrated by Franklin D. Roosevelt and is known as Social Security.

The commonly accepted definition of a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from profit.