The Bulletpoint Blog

Social Security reform

Bush's current Social Security reform proposal is the most brilliantly malevolent scam in history.

• To make the case that a crisis exists within the next twenty years, it is necessary to assume that the government is not good on its debts... however,
• To assume that privatized accounts will yield anything at all, it is necessary to assume that the government is good for its debts. (If the US won't honor its debts, then the worlds currency has no value. Therefore, the worldwide economy has no foundation. It is hard to visualize a thriving stock market within this context.)
• To make the case that a crisis exists, if the government allows retirees to withdraw their savings from the trust fund, it is necessary to assume that our economy will grow pitifully - about 1/3 as fast in the next 75 years as it has in the last 75 years.
• To treat privatized accounts as the cure for the "crisis" it is necessary to assume that the economy will grow at least as fast in the next 75 years as it has in the past.

Matt Yglesias has an excellent deobfuscation of this topic on his blog.

Suffice to say, there is no underlying logic behind the proposal - save the logic that every burglar uses: "I can make your stuff become my stuff and not get caught! Cool!"

posted by Lumberjack @ 9:01 AM