My interpretation is that SSI is an insurance policy. You pay premiums and just because you did not get old yet you do not get to stop it while still alive and aging. Likewise you do not get your premiums back because you can always change your mind when you get old.

The terms as I understand them - meaning the terms when I signed on mean that after I pay premiums for 40+ quarters (10 years) I am eligible for life. I do not have a Social Security Number.

People wonder how I can put those sentences together.

For the purposes of posting on StSC, I have no SSN. I am not making an insurance claim. If you think your SSN is for revenue and income tax purposes you will be giving it for such purposes. If I thought that a SSN was for posting purposes then I could not truthfully tell you that I have no SSN, could I? I would defeat the purpose of the SSN by saying that here, supposing such a purpose existed.

Two keys opened this insight to me.

One was a visit to the Social Security Administration office - which I suggest you might try if you are serious about learning from your own works instead of trusting mine. The lady treated me like a financial terrorist when I demanded she remove my SSN from the records. She got the manager and was clearly expecting him to set me back right, in prison. He asked me when I applied for the number? - When I was twelve. Then he asked me how I keep the SSN in existence? - By writing it or saying it out loud. This was a long time ago but as I remember he suggested that I quit doing that.

[Let that slowly sink in between your ears!]

Key #2: I have heard that the terms of the contract about the 40+ quarters has been repealed... Not for me! Insurance is handled in admiralty:

Citation #6: A cardinal principle, in which the practice of admiralty courts differs from that of courts of common law, permits the parties to a suit to prosecute and defend upon their rights as such rights exist at the institution of the action; the assignment of a right of action being deemed to vest in the assignee all the privileges and remedies possessed by the assignor...