Posted by Well, the Social Security Trustees Report is out, and, as has been reported every year since 1993, Social Security is still destined to collapse over three decades from the date of the release of the report–a unit of time I like to refer to as the Samuelson Unit after columnist and fucking moron Robert Samuelson. I point this out because, if the 1993 predictions had been accurate, we should have only seventeen years (give or take) until the Trust Fund is dry.
Yep, the pessimistic estimates keep on keepin’ on. Unfortunately, our idiot press corps is unable to discern the basic facts of Social Security, such as the Board of Trustees is mandated by law to use incredibly low rates of economic growth when making its predictions. So, like it or not, we’ll be subjected to another annual go-around of Club for Growth fuckers explaining how important it is that we cut aid to widows and orphans, even though there’s no need to do so (face it, guys, FDR won in 1932–get over it).
I noticed that the component that supports disabled workers and their families really jumped this year. There’s a simple reason for this: workers who lost their jobs and can’t find work are filling disability claims (do manual labor for thirty years, and your body will be pretty beaten up). It doesn’t help either, that the Bush administration has fought any extension of unemployment benefits; this is a great way to encourage people to file disability claims.
Update: Also see Brad Delong and Paul Krugman.
March 26, 2008
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November 30, 2008
March 26, 2009