All Ponzi schemes pay out.
Small Ponzi schemes pay only a few before the swindler absconds with the swag.
Big Ponzi schemes can run for decades. Paying off all early investors with the greater number of new investors every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal half of Madoff's direct investors lost no money."
All Ponzi schemes play out, no matter how large the pool of investors eventually you will have tapped too many and can no longer find enough more. This wouldn't be true if investors came in infinate numbers but in any other case it is true.
Reagan saved SS from early demise by ropeing in more involentary investors , Clinton posponed the inevitable by changeing the formula by which COLA is computed to quietly reduce the payout .
Other presidents have done other things that either reduce the payout or increase the number of involentary investors, but what no one has ever done was to bank the "investment" it was all spent the same year it was taken in all of the time.
This cannot be laid squarely on one party as blame, nether party has done anything effective.
I will probly live long enough to receive back a fraction of the money I have put in, You, XO, are likely to live long enough to see the payouts be severely reduced.