Social Security
mikethemadbiologist | October 29, 2007I've criticized Senator Obama before for his inaccurate views of the Social Security program. Paul Krugman has a very nice takedown--on the TV, no less:
What is Obama thinking? Is he trying to position himself as a liberal...Republican?
Help Public School Kids by Funding my Challenge at DonorsChoose
mikethemadbiologist | August 2, 2007Once again, Robert Samuelson tries to argue that Social Security is DOOOMMMEEDDD! one Samuelson Unit from now. Samuelson falls back on his old standby--lumping Social Security and Medicare together. Mark Thoma explains:
The main problem is rising medical costs, and unlike the misplaced emphasis on Social Security in the last election, there is a lot of focus on health care reform in the political debate this time around. Samuelson seems to have completely missed the connection between health care reform and his pet column peeve, hence his claim that the problem is being ignored in the…
mikethemadbiologist | May 24, 2007Ordinarily, I would dismiss someone who thinks that the K-12 educational system is the U.S. is good as a lunatic because 'everyone knows' that our primary educational sucks. Then I think about the conventional wisdom that Social Security is DOOMED, and I realize that maybe the conventional wisdom about education is wrong. Gerald Bracey has an interesting post about U.S. education (italics mine):
I once had occasion to tell my son-in-law about how well American kids had done on an international comparison.
"That's amazing,"" he said. "Why," I asked, "is it amazing?" "Well, I just assumed our…
mikethemadbiologist | May 21, 2007Actually, I'm not just mad at the pundit, but also at Senator Obama: he knows his position is intellectually dishonest.
By way of Ezra Klein, I came across a discussion at Hotline about this interview with Senator Obama:
For the first time as a presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, posed a question about entitlement reform, said that "everything was on the table," except for private accounts, and in doing so, because the first top-tier Democratic presidential candidate to acknowledge that Social Security deficits could not, and would not, be solved without pain.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You've…
mikethemadbiologist | May 2, 2007Tristero has an interesting multiple choice exam for everyone. I have a minor problem with one answer, however (italics mine):
(B) Advocating the privatization of Social Security as a means of resolving a very real but overblown problem - as favored by the Bush administration and conservatives in Congress - looks increasingly foolish and indefensible.
As I've argued before, Social Security will most likely go bankrupt one Samuelson Unit from now. Given that the Samuelson Unit is always 30-38 years from the time of measurement, and requires the tanking of the U.S. economy for an…
mikethemadbiologist | April 24, 2007I've invented a new unit of time, the Samuelson Unit, which is the length of time required for the Social Security system to become 'bankrupt.' Oddly enough, Social Security is always DOOMED roughly 34 years from the time of the estimate. In other words, Social Security is doing fine, and will continue to be solvent. Today, the NY Times had a pretty picture illustrating the Samuelson Unit in its full glory*:
Notice that the estimate every year has been that Social Security will be unable to meet its benefits 30-38 years out...for the last fourteen years. Got it? I loves me my Samuelson…
mikethemadbiologist | April 24, 2007Named after economist Robert Samuelson, who, along with the Concord Coalition, is fighting the Glorious War on Social Security. It's inspired by the Friedman Unit, named after NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who predicted for several years running that the "next six months" will be critical in Iraq. So what's a Samuelson Unit?
The length of time it takes for the Social Security Trust Fund to go bankrupt. As Atrios puts it:
Well, another year and not much has changed. Last year they said Social Security could pay full scheduled benefits without any program changes until 2040, and now it…
mikethemadbiologist | April 23, 2007...stoopid media tricks to ensue. Just thought I would direct your attention to this post.
mikethemadbiologist | April 20, 2007Hopefully, talking about Social Security will be marginally less inflamatory than evolution or global warming, and it illustrates many of the points made in various discussions. First, though, I want to clear the deck about some misconceptions about Social Security (I have a lot of the links here and here, so I won't repeat them below):
1) Social Security will most likely be solvent in perpetuity without any need for tax increases or benefit cuts. No, really. For even marginal tax or benefit alterations, the economy has to grow at a rate about 20% lower than the average U.S. historical…
mikethemadbiologist | February 11, 2007In light of El Jefe Maximo's State of the Union speech, where he discussed Social Security privatization, I've dredged from the archives this very short post about a side of Social Security that is completely ingored in the whole debate.
Roughly one-third of all Social Security payouts go to the disabled. One thing I haven't heard in all of the discussion about private Social Security accounts is how these accounts would work for the disabled. Suppose you're 45, middle class, and unable to work anymore. How much could your private account be worth? Maybe the privatizers haven't answered this…
mikethemadbiologist | November 27, 2006To avoid possible brain damage, the Surgeon General recommends that Sebastian Mallaby's columns only be read using the StupidVu 9000
Someone needs to tell Bush that when I wrote a post titled "Democrats Crush GOP; Bush Declares 'Mandate'", I was joking. Now that El Jefe Maximo has psychologically disinvested from the Iraqi Occupation, he has decided that the message the American electorate sent in the 2006 elections was "You've done such a great job with foreign policy, FEMA, and the budget deficit, we would really like you to screw up Social Security."
Really, Bush is once again, after…
mikethemadbiologist | September 5, 2006Looking at the comments from a previous post about social security, I wanted to address a couple of other points, and then provide some more evidence about the ridiculousness of the Social Security 'crisis.' First, as I'll discuss below, Social Security will not collapse. There is no serious evidence to support that scenario (please, take a deep breath; I'll get to that). If you want to privatize social security, cut benefits, or change the eligibilty rules (one-third of Social Security payouts do not go to the elderly, but to widows, orphans, and the disabled), you have to make those…