The American Mind

There is no shortfall. The only way to argue otherwise is to engage in financial legerdemain.

I’m glad that Romney supports partial-privitization of social security. Our current S.S. system will go bankrupt. No if, ands, or buts about it. Also changing the retirement age now that people don’t die at around 50 or 60 as often would be another welcome addition.

Dafool.com

Love the revisionist history, Chet. If there’s one thing liberals and conservatives do agree on, it’s that there is a shortfall. The GAO agrees. Timing depends on how one projects growth (the GAO figures have it at 2042, last I looked). The issue here isn’t whether there’s a shortfall – heck, you could get Feingold and Sensenbrenner to agree on that – but how to fix it.

Timing depends on how one projects growth (the GAO figures have it at 2042, last I looked).

If it lasts to 2042 then it lasts forever – there’s no coherent way to predict financial realities that far forward.

That’s the legerdemain that I was talking about. If there’s no shortfall for 4 decades then there won’t ever be a shortfall; that’s an indisputable financial fact.

“That’s the legerdemain that I was talking about. If there’s no shortfall for 4 decades then there won’t ever be a shortfall; that’s an indisputable financial fact.”

Nonsense. Failure to plan is planning to fail. And SS will, eventually, barring some sort of intervention. And any of the failure timelines assume a “standard” growth rate – if we have a Japan-like recession; all bets are off and SS fails quickly, probably in the next 15-20 years.

The only “legerdemain” that’s gone on is the counting of SS surpluses against the deficit, a tactic done by both parties for at least 15 years, probably more.

I don’t agree with Romney (or Bush) on this issue – the financial industry has proven itself to be as corrupt as a week old corpse – but I’m glad to see candidates become unafraid of the ‘third rail’ of SS.

Failure to plan is planning to fail.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men…” We can cross-quote all day, but the fact remains that there’s no coherent way to plan that far in advance beyond what we’ve already done. It’s like planning for the eventual destruction of the Sun. Sure, it’s going to happen; but it’s so far over the horizon that planning for it isn’t a realistic possibility.

Failure to plan is planning to fail. And SS will, eventually, barring some sort of intervention.

Or, say, slightly-higher social security taxes. If the shortfall doesn’t even begin until 2042 then there simply won’t be one.

There’s no social security shortfall. There won’t be one. And that’s the conclusion of everyone who’s studied the problem without ideological blinders. It’s a made-up issue – which is why you never heard any more from Bush about it once it became clear it had no political angle he could use. A Social Security shortfall is as likely as the failure of the US postal system. It’s just not a realistic possibility.

And any of the failure timelines assume a “standard” growth rate – if we have a Japan-like recession; all bets are off and SS fails quickly, probably in the next 15-20 years.

Sure. And if the Sun blows up tomorrow, we’ll all really be screwed. What’s most likely is that we’ll experience much greater growth than any of your failure timelines specify – we already do. The timelines are purposefully pessimistic.

There’s no SS shortfall. It’s simply not going to happen.