About that Number (Yesterday's Soc Sec report was cooked - NYT)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/opinion/24thu3.html?

. . .

It's bad enough that the trustees began some of their calculations with that $10.4 trillion figure. It's arrived at by projecting the system's shortfall over infinity, rather than the usual 75-year time frame - as if the system's finances 10,000 years from now are a legitimate policy concern. Moreover, no less an authority than the American Academy of Actuaries is already on record debunking infinite projections as conveying "little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances" and "likely to mislead anyone lacking technical expertise ... into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated."

. . .

Some people who interpret the numbers as a deterioration appear to be confused. But others, like President Bush, are being deliberately alarmist. Mr. Bush's persistent misstatements on Social Security leave little doubt that he wants Americans to believe that the system is irretrievably broken so that they will buy into his unnecessary privatization plan.

Fortunately, the unpoliticized numbers in yesterday's report are not overly dire. Using a 75-year time horizon, the trustees project that the system will be able to pay full benefits until 2041, at which time it will be able to pay 74 percent of the promised benefits, falling to 68 percent by 2079. That works out to a gap of $4 trillion, which could be bridged with modest tax increases and benefit cuts, phased in over the next few decades. If people try to tell you different, they need to be set straight.

Truth is that this administration doesn't care whether or not the sky is actually falling; they just see an opportunity for personal gain if they can convince enough sheeple that it is. So even if 99.44% of experts agree the sky is not falling, they will keep looking till they find one "expert," paying them off if need be, to say the sky is falling, and voila! here's proof of the crisis. (Ignore that man behind the curtains, there! Or in this case, ignore that multitude of people behind the curtains--they don't know what they're talking about!)

assumption for next 10 years given the deficits.

The lower wage earnings over the next 10 years is no doubt the GOP plan for us over the next 10 years - so who can question that....

sigh..

:-(

...how do we deal with such people when they are so out of touch with reality?

STOP SPENDING THE GODDAMN SURPLUS, you corrupt bunch of money perverts!!! Perhaps INCREASE the amount of $$$ in the fund by scrapping some of those worthless, untested, pie-in-the-sky defense initiatives you keep pouring $$$ into!!!

</rant>

I don't care if SS is gonna go bankrupt next month - the issue is how we are going to deal with it. And *'s private account non-plan is NOT the answer. But the repug media machine has it right: scare the hell out of the american people and they'll jump on *'s bandwagon even if they have no idea where it's heading. I'm so damn tired of living in a country where fifty percent of the populace is STUPID!

but the propaganda surrounding solvency issues is also important, as are the facts on solvency. And the politicization of every department of the federal government under Bush is an overarching issue.

There is much to discuss.