January 11, 2005
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BACK TO POLITICS
The Prex's drive to partially privatize social security is a good idea, if you happen to be a securities dealer. Isn't his little brother Neil one of those, or did he loose his license?
It seems to me a fairly simple arguement against it should start with the question: How much of these investments is the government going to guarantee?
The arguement that the social security fund will "Go broke" by 2048 is generally based on the problem of the "Baby Boomers" overloading the system. During the 1950s and '60s, the birth rate was 23-24/1000 population. Almost twice what it was in the '30s and '40s and 10/1000 more than it is now
it declined fairly rapidly during the '80s and '90s to currently about 14 live births per thousand population - and rising slightly. That being the case, it looks like the problem is a bubble - lots more retired per worker, but as the baby boomers die off it will settle back into a more stable system. As our social security system is rather modest compared to most other developed countries, we don't really have that much of a problem.
One possible solution would be to tie social security to Universal Medical coverage. Which when asked, most Americans seem to favor. Sure it would mean much higher taxes, but couple that with much lower medical payouts by individuals and companies and maybe we might see higher salaries and less off-shore outsourcing. We now spend more of our national income on health care than any other country and have less to show for it than many others do.
Comments (2)
The President doesn't care about whether privatizing Social Secuirity is bad idea or not. He is pushing for this mostly to take away one of the few political bastions that Democrats still have. There is no Social Secuirity crisis. The far bigger problem is the Medicare system, which Bush already had his fun with, to the detriment of the system.
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