recently regarding a comment made to the WaPo by Steve Goss, the boss
at the SSTF. Goss confirmed that as of 2007 SS had collected as much as
$240b from undocumented workers. That blew my mind. I knew there had to
be money, big money. But I did not think it could be that high. The
number has grown since 2007, and the whole ball of wax is earning
interest. So where is this money going to go? I’ll refine the issue:
A person comes illegally to the US and illegally obtains a fake SS and
using that fake # finds work. This person stays in the US continuing to
work illegally for many years. During that period this person has SS
payroll taxes deducted from their paycheck. This person returns to
(Mexico) and at age 62 applies for SS retirement benefits.
Well, I got this wrong. So did all the people I asked (including a
lawyer). How about you? The answer is that an illegal worker using an
illegal SSN has the same rights to SS benefits as a legal worker with a
legal SSN. The only difference is that the person who worked illegally
must receive those SS benefits outside of the USA.
In 2006 the Ensign Amendment was drafted to eliminate this interesting
treatment. The bill was defeated in the Senate by a 49-50 vote. Senator
Leahy (D.Vt.) said at the time:
"We
should not steal their funds or empty their Social Security accounts.
"That is not fair. It does not reward their hard work or their financial
contributions. It violates the trust that underlies the Social Security
Trust Fund."
Goss put a number of $240b as of 07 out there. I took that estimate and
extrapolated where it might be today. I came up with 1/3 of a trillion.
What might be the future liabilities of SS regarding this? About $500b.
Should that be the result, that amount MUST be paid (and spent) outside
of our borders. This makes no sense to me. None of it does. But that is
the way it is.
My original post was bashed to pieces at another site, Angry Bear. There
were some interesting comments that I participated in. A lady that
works for SS made some important contributions. She had a fair bit to
say. She explained how the SSN’s are illegally obtained. She describes
her role in facilitating payments to beneficiaries who worked in the US
illegally and that used fraudulently obtained SSNs. The AB site does not
like me and what I write. Neither do their contributors. The lady who
made available the clarifying information does not like me much either.
Her final thoughts:
Sir, give this up. It is dishonest, misleading and wrong to do what you are doing. I am finished writing to you on this subject.
The entire discussion can be found here. Some cut and pastes from the comments section:
SS does
not keep track of benefits paid by beneficiary immigration status. That
is because as far as the program goes, it doesn't matter. Earnings in,
benefits out. To emphasize, it is perfectly legal for a person to
receive SS benefits on wages earned while in the country illegally as
long as the person receives those benefits outside the US. It has always
been legal as far as I know. I was hired as a bilingual speaker of
Spanish to process these claims and did so personally or in a
supervisory capacity.They (SS) hired me to take claims from people who were insured for
benefits, illegal or not. Then, of course, people can go home and get
checks. This is LEGAL. Believe it or not, perfectly legal. If Congress
had intended to, it could have passed a law making all those quarters of
coverage disappear. But, they didn't and they haven't and I'd be
surprised if they ever do.
Again, the real kick in the pants is that the money MUST be paid out of
the country. Who says America does not have great legislators and great
laws? No wonder we are becoming second rate.
"We have 12mm undocumented people living here. The solution is neither amnesty nor deportation. It has to be something in the middle."
And when you look at the SS surplus, it becomes obvious why some people like it just the way it is.
"As it stands it is unfair to those who do live here legally."
Sure it's unfair, but NAFTA and its negative impact on Mexican workers is also unfair. So is a government that exports inflation to all trade partners, including Mexico and its citizens, which runs them into the ground every decade or so (not to mention the dirty side-drilling and water stealing tricks American companies play). Do you believe in Karma? How about this, let's avoid screwing nations that are closest to our borders so we don't suffer unintended consequences?
"I doubt we would have had the housing boom we had. T'was cheap labor that helped drive it. I do not think unemployment would be 9.6% either."
Oh, here we go again. Blame the immigrants -- even for the housing bubble. Cheap labor is a "deflater", not an inflater. Find out what the home builders were profiting and you'll see what I mean. Also, land was part of the bubble too. Did illegals build the land?
When I wrote this I had no anti illegal worker thoughts in my head. I am disappointed that some of you saw it that way. At the time I was thinking, "Dumb rules and laws".
We have 12mm undocumented people living here. The solution is neither amnesty nor deportation. It has to be something in the middle.
Whatever it is we should get on with it. As it stands it is unfair to those who do live here legally.
By collecting all this money over all those years SS helped to perpetuate what was happening. People could come here and get fake SSNs for $100. With that they could get jobs (and yes pay ss). So they came. Who would blame them? Good jobs, decent pay, nice climate. But if SS said "No!" "Something is wrong here" things would be much diferent then they are today. I doubt we would have had the housing boom we had. T'was cheap labor that helped drive it. I do not think unemployment would be 9.6% either.
Bad rules and laws = Bad outcome
agreed, I didn't see your point as anti or pro immigration or illegal immigration or whatever, you point out an aspect of conflicted, erractic laws and enforcment on immigration, a very legit policy issue.
We could do with a dose of compassion when it comes to this subject. Please spend some time in their shoes before you judge them as a group. They're not nefarious criminals. Granted they're are some nefarious criminals within their ranks, but that is true of any group. If you look closely, they're actually just people, like you and I, who are trying to carve out the best life they can for themselves and their families.
They're not nefarious criminals. ... they're actually just people, like you and I, who are trying to carve out the best life they can for themselves and their families.
Lovely statement. And true, for the most part. So why are your biases showing? Because that statement is also true for most, if not all, of the people standing in line for years, legally trying to become part of the U.S.
Why is it that you are not arguing for the people standing in line legally to be the first to benefit from your compassion?
Of course I would argue that those going through the process legally should get in first. In reality, those who would cross the border illegally aren't waiting for any line. I suppose I can't defend breaking the law to cross the border, although I do understand the motivation for doing it. I should have only asked that you be empathetic enough to see why they would take such action. Realistically, I believe that there are very few of us who would not make the same choices if the situation were reversed.
It seems this article was written with the intention of demonizing illegals (as if we really need more of that). But as it turns out, a few inconvenient facts came out: undocumented workers pay into SS, to the tune of 100s of billions, but won't be getting most of that money back. The idea that every undocumented worker that has ever worked in the US will one day (at the age of 60-something) claim their SS compensation from abroad is completely and utterly laughable. Sure, some will, but most won't. The other truth is that the vast majority of undocumented workers are on corporate payrolls and do in fact pay income taxes, and in addition to SS, medicare, not to mention state and local income taxes. How many times have we heard people say "they don't pay their taxes"? What a joke. Btw, $240bn is not an accurate estimate. It's much higher. Do the math, any fool can figure this out.
How much do you think it costs to provide services to their children?
Less than what it costs to provide services to our homegrown unemployed/disabled citizens.
I thought I could not be suprised by anythig the government does any more.. I was wrong.
I looked at the voting on <aa href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm...">SA3895</a> and it is all over the place. Some Republicans voted against the amendment because they did not want the amendment to make the bill more appealing and easier for Democrats to vote for. The main bill was "Comprehensive Immigration Reform." I would hope the amendment would be proposed post 2010 Democrat apocalypse as a stand alone bill.
It's easy to stop undocumented immigrants coming here - just enforce the law and punish employers.
Put a couple of thousand employers and managers in jail and the "problem" goes away very quickly.
Wow. I never imagined this could be true. Break the law once, then twice, work 40 quarters or ten years, and we have to pay you once you become eligible.
This country, POLITICIANS, are full fucking retards. I have the solution. Refund their fucking contributions -10% for the hassle and boot their asses out. Ok, what's not to like?
You don't expect the business people who bankrolled Pelosi, Reid, et al. to acyually <i>abide</i> by the minimum wage increase that was passed back in '07 do you? Those things get passed just to make other, smaller, less well-lawyered enterprises face greater economic barriers to entry.
that ss dollars leave the country whether legally or illegally is just another for the fed to make good on their promise to control unemployment rates and inflation. one currency for the globe, force feed fed specie on the unwashed masses.
Only in America!
Slightly off topic but Citizens of USA -BEWARE !!!
I hope your I.R.S. isn't thinking of doing what the UK tax authorities
are thinking of doing. I say this is fundamentally wrong and I also say fuck em all !!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7985181/HMRC-could-t...
Are you against the fact that a person who worked and payed taxes should get something in return?
He payd the SS fee, so if the government would really want to find these persons, they should only check the numbers.
Money comes in at the SS from a number that doesn't exist of is double in the system. And nobody reacts on it?
COME ON PEOPLE!
It's clear the US gov. want illegals to work in the US, simply because they are a bit cheaper.
Oh my god, a sensible comment!
Bruce, I encourage you to keep on investigating this issue, because it's definitely going to make a lot of people very uncomfortable to learn just how easy it would be to prevent most illegal employment.
Are you saying an illegal alien can collect benefits from an SSN to which he contributed even if that SSN never belonged to him? If so, how does the SSA determine how much the illegal contributed, assuming the real owner of the SSN would normally also have contributed? Who arbits disputes?
Or, does the SSA only pay benefits to (current or former) illegal aliens who contributed under unique SSNs illegally issued by the SSA?
I doubt very much that illegal aliens who have illegally been issued SSNs by the SSA really need to leave the country to collect their benefits. They would only need to leave to collect them legally.
The vast majority of illegal aliens enter the US with concrete jobs prepared for them. The notion that some coppers are going to stop the inflow by chasing after aliens in the Arizona desert is a blatantly stupid con that only desperate xenophobes would try to believe.
If a nation doesn't control it's borders it ceases to be a nation. What's going on isn't potpourri immigration from multiple countries, it is human migration. Isolationism is being practiced at the private level. If you notice the rich people do not build homes in the ghetto, they live far away and sometimes in gated communities. The migration of native Americans is out of California, even though the population of CA is way up over the past 20 years, the white population is down. What kind of country is being created?
The SS is madness, but I like the idea. All the illegals can get SS, but they have to go home. Just set an end date such as January 1, 2012, and increase border enforcement agents starting now, to show that there will be no amnesty. Those who stay past the end date will be deported and forfeit SS benefits.
California is now the least educated state... I wonder why? Could it have anything to do with mass immigration and births to these people? The real problem isn't really illegal aliens, it's legal chain migrants.
Here's a novel idea. Let me keep my 12% in the Banco De Sealy!
Social Security and its $106k cap is one of the great destructors of the middle class. At one point SS was a good idea....but after the trust fund wall was breached in the early 80s, Washington got addicted to overspending and took down the country will be the post-mortem if indeed anyone is taking Poly Sci in 2210...
when, in the 80s, the fix to soc security was higher FICA taxes on low income workers, while, at same time rich people tax rates were lowered., you knew the "fix" was in. Apparently taxing poorer people is not hard on economy, their money does not trickle up, but taxing rich people kills economy. Last I checked, a dollar spent on food, clothing, or apt rent was just as good for the economy as a dollar spent on house in the Hamptons.
Robert Reich keeps promoting the idea of giving employers and employees a FICA tax holiday on first 20k of salary paid for simply by not capping max FICA taxable income. I kind of like this. For many big employers and some high end shops like say a software consulting firm, it would be a push on tax costs, as they have many employees making over 100k, but for the smallest, struggling businesses it would be found money for both the employer and employee and it would be found money for vast majority of American workers making less than $106, and would be a push for those making up to $126k.
This is absolutely true; however, right wing sociopaths call this a "lefty life."
Increase in Social Security taxes was the main engine behind tax cuts for the rich. Arthur Laffer used the excess collected taxes on social security to advocate the push for Bush tax cuts because deficits were negligible and US Fed Budget was almost balanced, so he said.
The additional argument advanced for the tax cuts was the "theory" that rich were already paying more than they fair share of taxes, and social security payments made by the poor did not count and should not be included in calculating who is paying all the taxes.
Now the deceitful rich claim that Social Security taxes are just general taxes and SS is just a promise that should be reneged.
mutt, agree. The only thing you really have to do in order to work here is to get a ss number and your employer has to pay the tax too. Its a cash fix for the Feds. Thats why Bush let 10 million or more in during his term - it was all just for short term cash. Now Arizonians are seeing the latent impact and saying NFW.
However this is all picking up dollar bills in front of a freight train. SS is doomed for everyone sooner than anyone expects because we are bankrupt. The illegals are sure as shit not going to get shit and those people are smarter than many here because I doubt they ever expected it. What is being collected from them, then and now is simply a government permit fee. Everyone knows it. Its just one of the hurd of fucking pink elephants that are in the room. I like Mexican people and thei culture and I would like to see some sanity brought to the table in terms of the illegal status of many of them but they know more than most of us apparently... that they ain't gettin shit from the gringos in Washington, ever...nor are we...as the illegal SS scam is just one little move in the Giant Game of Social Security 3-Card Monty...
Bruce, very interesting stuff, thanks for the article and discussion. It is definitely stupid for US insist someone take their Soc Security outside country for them to get it.
I always have a problem with people saying Soc Security is simply govt run insurance/savings program because it's really not, it's simply not the case, Rather, it's current workers paying for older people plus some disability and coverage for death benefits to kin. If people simply took out benefits they put in, then it would be a different discussion, but many people, especially the lucky older generation currently retired, get far more benefits out than they paid in, some use up what they paid in, with a reasonable rate of return factored in, in just a few years. So I have real issues with paying standard benefits to foreign-living illegal immigrants when they may receiving benefits well in excess of what they paid in. In fact, it doesn't take the many years of working to get some fairly decent amount of benefits out of Soc Security, so an illegal immigrant could work here for just a few years, leave country, turn 67 and get benefits for 20-30 years. That I believe is unfair to American workers.
Then there are those that work their whole adult lives as illegal, undocumented workers and have paid for older retired workers benefit, but then when they old, if they stay in US where all their family is likely, they get nothing...or we send them packing, taking current workers taxes outside the country. The part about this I think is messed up about this, is we let them work even while we know full well they are illegal. Is an unenforced law, that is unenforced to benefit employers and corporations, really a law? If you don't ever protect your intellectual property, it can be considered lost. If you don't stop encroachment on your property, it could be considered lost to you and yet, we let someone work for 30 years, but then only enforce the law saying that's illegal when they will be taking rather than giving..but stranger, if you leave country and take your money with you, than its legal again????? However, it does seemed quite well disclaimed that if you stay in US you get nothing, so illegal immigrants can't claim they weren't told.
The thing that I think is funny, which has occurred to me throughout our debates on illegal immigration, the SSA clearly knows who is working legally under a legal SS# and who is not...as they know exactly how much extra they are getting from illegal workers and provide numbers for it. I think that for about the cost of a 20 person staff of IT, stat, and database mining folks, we could stop more illegal immigration than all the fences and border guards combined. Simply do not let people work under fake SS#. Shoot I don't think you even need biometrics, just study the numbers and find the non-existent numbers, the numbers being used by multiple people, the numbers of dead people etc...Soc Sec somehow figures out who gets benes when multiple people pay under one person's number, so it's apparently easy to figure out who is the illegal ones. If you cut off legal, non-cash jobs to illegal immigrants, you have now cut off the major draw of illegal immigrants, leaving them only cash, under table work. We could do this tomorrow, but businesses, employers don't want it. They prefer to have illegal labor as such workers are more abusable, employers do not have to worry about following labor laws as much etc..
So we are in this messed up immigration situation. I firmly believe we would have been better off to straight up let way more immigrants to legally migrate. Not as much immigration as we did in the early 1900s, when anyone could come whenever they wanted in whatever numbers. But we could have allowed about 2/3 of the people that wanted to come illegally come legally. Yes, they would have still competed with native born citizens for jobs, but so have illegals. But, since they were legal, employment laws, the laws of our land would have applied to legal immigrants as much as native borns, making immigrants not automatically more appealing to employers for this reason.
Of course we could have jalso just cut off jobs for illegal immigrants by checking their legal status.
Instead, we are in this Frankenstein situation that really only benefits businesses/employers...while it hurts American workers, and suckers illegal immigrants to coming to US for jobs and keeps them illegals on edge and exploitable by employers. This Soc-Security-payments-to-illegal-immigrant-but-only-if-they-are-out-of-country is another example of this Frankenstein immigration policy.
Let's be honest, we didn't stop massive illegal immigration because businesses did not want it stopped...nor did we did we allow legal immigration in great numbers because businesses prefer illegal, scared workers to legal employees that assert their rights and have options.
Why was it that Republicans controlled the Presidency and both the House and Senate from 2000-2006, and yet no sweeping laws to stop illegals from getting jobs were passed even though the vast majority of the Republican base would have been all for employee database checking and biometrics IDs for jobs? Really, Repubs controlled and they easily could have gotten a few Dems, (say in border states or nothern, rural state with small Latino population that was not a big support to local Dems), to sign on to bust a filibuster if needed, but still Repub base got almost nothing on immigration in 6 years of Repub party control. Could it be the corporate support for the Repub party?
I keep thinking our fake moderation between Dem and Repub policies keeps playing into the hand of corporations and out of the hands of the American worker. We have many such Frankenstein laws, Heath Care Reform being the latest in that it is giant gift from American tax payers to certain over-paid, crony corporations.
As always -- follow the money, and ask 'cui bono'. This, and tom's post earlier sum it up best. The situation is not due to the demonic hordes of degenerate, benefit-sucking, freeloading illegal immigrants -- it is this way because it benefits those holding the strings. Get low-cost labor with few legal recourses, depress low-earning US workers wages, plant a divisive, emotionally charged national debate/firestorm to distract and misdirect attention from all the other theft going on, add to the 'need' for law-enforcement personnel and weapons spending, add to social groups with higher incarceration rates (due to lower income/education) to build more prisons -- it's quite an ingenious scheme, when you think about it.
also, it now makes sense to me something I've heard lawyer friends complain to me about. They were representing illegal immigrants that had been in jail for years for some low leve offense or no offense other than being illegally in country, but they were never deported. The immigrants would start out trying to be able to stay in US, but eventually, after years of being locked up they just wanted to get out of jail. So the lawyers would simply ask they be deported back to home country, sometimes even when home country was truly dangerous place for them to go, or very very poor, as they preferred freedom over their economic or security concerns, and yet these lawyers clients would sit in jail for 4, 5 years. If you are trying to mazimize profits for prisons, this makes a lot of sense, if you are tyring to do best for US citizens, its stupid waste of money and uncessarily harmful to incarcerated illegal immigrant.
Yes, the war on drugs was a previous incarnation of a 'war' to rally people around, which of course was as effective at stopping a drug market as all the border patrolling, ICE raids, and incarceration has been at stopping illegal workers. Catherine Fitts' recount of the buzz on Wall Street in 90s about private prison companies' stock profits, at same time young black men were being SWATed away for life for low level drug dealing, is chilling, http://www.dunwalke.com/. And as typical, the promotion of the expensive, over-militarized solution to real problem is a bi-partisan, as Clinton/Dems just as involved in increasing drug incarceration rates as Repubs.
Again, in this case, private prison industry in AZ, which could use illegal immigrants being held to finally fill their "beds", is lurking behind politicians. And their whole, "you have to privatize prisons to make them most cost-effective for taxpayer" has been proven false, those private prisons are more costly and no more secure... the crazy girlfriend and white trash guys who escaped this summer escaped from a private AZ prison.
There is always some real problem (Bruce's fiscal concerns are valid, immigration is a policy concern to almost all nations but the poorest) that is hijacked into a real expensive solution that is paid for by regular working folks taxes, that lines the pockets of somebody other than regular working folks.
Yes. And they are not idiots. They obviously can even get the likes of some ZH personalities to unwittingly play along.
This truly is a "nothing to see here, move along" sort of issue, not because the opinions expressed are not generally unreasonable, but because any attention given these divisive issues only end up serving the string pullers.
If we can't tell it's a trap, then why would we avoid the bait?
I tend to assume regular people are up against a full-spectrum attack by the most devious and dedicated enemy with relatively unlimited resources who seeks utter planetary domination. The control structures like borders are primarily there to serve the enemy under the guise of protecting sovereignty or whatever else could be called a benefit of such a structure. But every aspect of national sovereignty was never not exploited to benefit the string pullers and their schemes.
Almost any issue that comes up can be deconstructed in this way. If I were one of these string puller types, and I wanted more control and power, would I not want to hold some border strings. Would it not be in the best interest of devious design 12, 45, and 46b to have an "unstable" border, where contraband, slaves and victoms may be scanned, sorted and harassed, or to be let through, as one's whim may choose?
Think like a string puller, with political, propaganda, police powers in hand.
Becomes silly to demonize those who have been allowed to cheat a corrupt system. I say let them corrupt it to obliteration. SS has always offended me as an evil scheme implemented against me without my permission. We need to redline that bitch as soon as possible as part of a full reboot of the social welfare regime. Don't number me, don't make me report my employment and income activities. Don't put some arbitrary dollar number anywhere near my name, unless it is a uniform number, and then, if it is uniform, there is no need to put a name by it.
We hate cheats because they exacerbate the theft and oppression over us. And that is crux, of course. String pullers want debt and death, the more the sooner the better. Fewer people, easier to control. Unhealthy people, easier to control. Bankrupt nations, easier to conquer. Imprisoned people, easier to control. Dependent people, easier to control. Indebted nations, easier to control. A population divided by race issues, easier to control. Ad naseum. Truly sick, but sick true.
Simply a distraction? Hell, no. Designs are always much more sophisticated than that. Subtle. Insidious. Mysterious. Obscured.
We overtly supported the 28,000 killed in drug cartel violence over the last three years, but the high-fives in the clubhouse is simultaneously convincing the people that we should lay blame at the feet of the second amendment, taking out a good chunk of the competition down south, giving excuse to fly predator drones, and promoting the cream of the war-hardened, hand-picked thugs to be stationed on the border, and tons of other fringe benefits.
Easier to control. Good for business. War is Peace.
+1
Precisely - It is the old East India Company playbook applied to us instead of the usual brown folks far away.
well put.
When the *^*&%&%& is our government going to take care of the hard working U S citizens. The hard working ones get taxed into poverty. What they have worked for and forced to pay into ( ss ) gets squandered on every hair brained thought that comes down the road. This is just more male bovine night soil from the welfare class running Washington. What a pathetic excuse for minds.
There is no other country that I am aware of that is this stupid. Mexico actively steals money from legal citizens. We give it away to people who are in the country against the law. I would love to be able to go to Germany, Italy, Austraila, New Zealand to mention a few and be able to be treated this well.
Well - you can in Denmark too. But only if you come from some middle-eastern or north african shithole. Being from that region somehow grants you more human rights, to squander behaving like an utter arsehole, than everyone else.
Everyone else, that does not contribute significantly to the size of the justice system or social security payments, we kick out again. The wellfare state must always grow!
so would i. can i take my illegally obtained Social Security benefits there, too? Right now i have no intention of returning to Mars because it's very cold this time of year there.
Say what? A great country won't call them illegal? Try staying in Mexico illegally. Go through a check point without proper papers, you'll prayer 24 hrs. a day to be back in the USA. The revenue lost per state and city in border areas is off the charts.
SS does not keep track of benefits paid by beneficiary immigration status.
Well, how about keeping track of benefits paid by legit and phony SS numbers? Really, how hard can that be...
Has the government discovered Excel yet?
Mercury, Federal agencies are funded by Congress. Therefore, they don't do anything not required of them, since no funds are provided by Congress for the not-required activity. As stated in Bruce's article above, Congress has not asked the SSA to provide data on benefits paid by legit and phony SSNs. However, the SSA does provide to Congress a list of illegitimate SSNs. See Nancy Ortiz' comments on the first page of the link that Bruce provided in his article.
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/09/ss-actuarys-bombshell-fizzles-krast...
Okay - somebody uses your SS# and claims benefits from Mexico two months before you do. Sounds like a nightmare to straighten out. No way they are going to pay two. And the guy in Mexico is probably in some village at the end of a dirt road with no phone.
"And the guy in Mexico is probably in some village at the end of a dirt road with no phone."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjz5qtOuWfU
thespian...are you seriously saying we should reward lawbreaking??? If you are, I am going to see you at your home and help my self!!!
I would rather the interpretation be along the lines of trying to change or revert certain laws. That's quite reasonable, no?
yes, like laws over sodomy. i find they impinge on a certain lifestyle. it's not easy being "half martian" you know.
talk to snowball. then read up on lawrence vs. texas.
If you "borrow" someone else's SS# and use it to work, or forge or otherwise fabricate a number, or make ANY misrepresentation to get a SS# or taxid, you are guilty of federal fraud (and I am quite sure a couple of felonious pile-on charges). This is blanket federal law, though I'm sure most of the mouth-breathers at Social Security aren't well-versed.
From this foundational fraud, all monies "owed" to the earner by Social Security are forfeited, as follows from the "constructive trust" doctrine (you cannot keep the proceeds of fraud, even if the punitive damages are less than the nominal amount of the proceeds).
So, this whole discussion is pretty silly. Of course, it is nice evidence of the fact that our entire society, especially government, is lawless, and "making it all up as it goes". Who is "owed" this money is going to make for some nice heated, yet irrelevant political football in the next few election seasons (especially as the actual fiscal position of the country continues to deteriorate fast).
ttfn...
Aaron
[google "implode" for more]
Work on a fake SS number. get the bennies sent to Tijuana. Continue to work in San Diego under another fake SS number and different name... later on, get the bennies sent to somewhere else. Names in Mexico are a dime a dozen. the ultimate 2'fer
i love it. can you explain this process in greater detail? i plan on being in Mexico in the next few weeks and given that prices are 1/10 what they are here "in the rich north" it gives me thoughts and dreams.
It would seem to me that any money earned in the commission of a crime would be forfited.
If they were Illegal Immigrants then working under stolden or fabricated Social Security numbers, also a crime. Would be punished insted of rewarded.