I’ll take the other side of this bet.

jon-nyc

There are ~70MM people receiving SSA benefits.

What are the odds a third of them are dead?

I’ll bet the true figure is in the high hundreds or very low thousands.

Doctor Phibes

10's of millions doesn't make any sense at all.

The great thing about blaming dead people for things is that it's well known that they're all Democrat voters.

Jolly

I doubt it.

I do suspect there is a good bit of fraud on the SSI side.

Mik

The fraud has yet to be determined. The issue I see here is the pitiful state of the government's data.

Jolly

@Mik said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

The fraud has yet to be determined. The issue I see here is the pitiful state of the government's data.

True, but that doesn't fit the talking points.

Doctor Phibes

@Mik said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

The issue I see here is the pitiful state of the government's data.

That isn't something that can be fixed over-night, and is presumably going to take a lot of hard work to correct.

We shall see....

Mik

So it's not worth doing? Crap data is a breeding ground for error.

Jolly

@Mik said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

So it's not worth doing? Crap data is a breeding ground for error.

And error is the breeding ground for waste.

bachophile

and waste is the breeding ground for bacteria, viruses, insects, pests, fungi, mold, toxic chemicals and methane and greenhouse gases..

i asked chatgpt

jon-nyc

Methane is the breeding ground of blue flaming and childish jokes.

Mik

And climate change. Ergo bad government data is killing our planet.

Doctor Phibes

@Mik said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

So it's not worth doing? Crap data is a breeding ground for error.

Did I say that?

Mik

You were thinking it…admit it….you’ll feel better once you acknowledge your inner slacker….

Doctor Phibes

@Mik said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

You were thinking it…admit it….you’ll feel better once you acknowledge your inner slacker….

Au contraire, mon ami, as we say in Canada. I love hard work. I could watch it all day.

89th

@jon-nyc This is what I refuse to get numb about. It’s like when Trump says there are 500 of this or that, when there are 200. Facts matter. Or that there’s 20,000,000+ dead people receiving benefits. Like you said, it’s probably 1-3% of that.

89th

@Mik said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

The fraud has yet to be determined. The issue I see here is the pitiful state of the government's data.

Honestly the jury is out on that, at least for SS data. I’d imagine the data is in pretty decent shape, but Trump and DOGE are chasing headlines and making claims without evidence. I’m all for reform, but so far I’ve seen so many headlines with false narratives, it makes me doubt the whole thing. Stuff “discovered” that has been public knowledge for 12-24 months already… Heck I even saw somewhere that the DOGE folks confused the birth date 1875 with a standard error code “1875” when a field is missing. That would make them think the person is 150 years old, when really they aren’t querying the data correctly.

I bet if you gave me 24 hours and access to SS payment and persons data, I could provide a 99% accurate summary of how much actual “payments to dead people” there are.

Mik

@Doctor-Phibes said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

@Mik said in I’ll take the other side of this bet.:

You were thinking it…admit it….you’ll feel better once you acknowledge your inner slacker….

Au contraire, mon ami, as we say in Canada. I love hard work. I could watch it all day.

My long lost brother.

The New Coffee Room

I’ll take the other side of this bet.