From what I've read, missing fields in COBOL are stored using ISO 8601:2004 standard. That is, they're given the date May 20, 1875. This isn't unique to COBOL. It's simply a way to get around null errors in databases. What's shocking is that Elon and his team are so incompetent they don't know this.
I suspect they do not know this. This baby software engineers have likely never worked with a real relational database system so have no practical experience in understanding one. There are a lot of indications they’re posers.
I worked with COBOL and nobody under 40 yo had the opportunity to learn it really. It's also extremely boring to learn 😆 I doubt they are understanding what they are reading, we had trouble finding people able to
They know it. If they don’t they could fucking Google it. This is just another lie fed to people who want to believe in conspiracies and Musk has no shame and is accountable to know one.
Maybe they should, you know, make a fucking effort before falsely claiming that IRS is so dumb they’re paying benefits to thousands of 150 years olds. Actually, a more plausible explanation is that they’re lying, they know they’re lying, and they just want to foment outrage.
That was a theory when we didn’t have the histogram. It doesn’t appear to fit the evidence - there’s not a spike right at 150 - but as Justin notes there are other explanations for why it’s still not mass fraud
Right, but if you are trying to calcs on missing values you will get errors — so you “plug” an obvious fake value that can be filtered out so calcs can be done on the database.
Prof Walters shared that the other day. That doesn’t explain why anyone older than 150 is listed, but his thread here proves that the data Musk is sharing is obviously false. Which anyone who’s ever used a computer before would understand. So Musk is either lying or a complete imbecile. Or both.
In addition to your explanations, a majority of illegal immigrants use SSNs of people who died and pay taxes to keep their jobs. Perhaps, that's what showing up...of course as you stated they're paying not taking benefits.
In fact we know that there are 53.7m folks aged 65+ actually receiving social security (or 55.1m including those also claiming SSI). Elon's table says there are nearly 100m social security numbers for folks aged 65+. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
What is scary, is the high quality government data will could quickly become unreliable and shaped and shifted to Trump’s agenda; just like any other authoritarian government.
Those who give a fraudulent social security number are added to the database (as payers, not recipients), but the record is fraudulent and so is never linked to a death certificate. And so they remain in the system as zombies.
Lemme add: This is a *guess* about what's going on in the database. More broadly, one can imagine many reasons why a legitimate database might look odd in ways that make great soundbites but that don't really speak to fraud at all.
Or, perhaps just look up the government audit report from the SSA Inspector General, called "Numberholders Age 100 or Older Who Did Not Have Information on the Numident" https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf
Comments
Elon, lost in conspiracy,
Claimed vampires get social security.
Old COBOL coding is really to blame.
Old Mainframes work better than Elon’s brain.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
(Thank goodness we have high-quality public government statistics to help us figure this stuff out.)
Those who give a fraudulent social security number are added to the database (as payers, not recipients), but the record is fraudulent and so is never linked to a death certificate. And so they remain in the system as zombies.
Fraud = financial *gain*, and so requires data on "recipients" not "database entries."
Nearly half of Elon's entries aren't recipients.
Or, perhaps just look up the government audit report from the SSA Inspector General, called "Numberholders Age 100 or Older Who Did Not Have Information on the Numident"
https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf