But his boldest move is a plan to create a social-security scheme by 2010.

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Similar to U.S. Social Security, the national pension scheme has essentially been an insurance program.

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Even Mr. Perry's declaration that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme, " much discussed in Monday's debate, has a parallel in the 1980 campaign.

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The defendants, according to prosecutors, held the four victims in subhuman conditions in a scheme to steal Social Security disability payments.

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The report underlines how it is Medicare, rather than Social Security, the government's bigger pension scheme, that will be the albatross around the taxpayer's neck.

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Social Security Secretary Alistair Darling said the aim of the scheme was to change the culture of employment and encourage firms to employ older people.

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Not to Milton Friedman, who called the contribution scheme needlessly regressive as part of his attack on Social Security.

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Despite clawing 40% of gross earnings in social-security contributions from employers and employees' pay-packets, the scheme by no means covers expenditure.

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So, in this ideal retirement scheme, Americans would respond to the prospect of a diminishing Social Security stipend by initiating or enhancing personal accounts.

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New York state law enforcers last year busted a scheme in which more than 250 people from 30 states were tricked into volunteering their Social Security numbers and birth dates in response to phony job and apartment listings on Craigslist.

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