Blogroll Update

New to the blogroll:

• The Dead Parrot Society, a group blog written by assorted professionals. Looks like some smart stuff, even if one of the writers takes exception to the points in my Social Security post.

  (By way of a quick rebuttal, Dead Parrot Victor writes
  

  Keep in mind that average workers who retire in 2012, of course, paid more into the system than they expect to get out.¹ This illustration presents a major problem for Angry Bear, because what it suggests is that you could take the present value of your contributions and, when you turn age 65/67, buy an inflation-adjusted annuity worth more than your Social Security benefits.

  But this, I think, still misses the insurance point. Victor is talking about the average worker getting a bad deal under SSRI. That’s natural in any insurance context. The average person with car insurance gets a bad deal. Ditto for homeowner’s and renter’s insurance, and for health insurance. In fact, were that not true, then the insurance companies would quickly go bankrupt. Insurance is about improving the well being of those with bad outcomes; everyone else gets a bad deal, ex-post, not ex-ante, from buying insurance.)

• Vox Baby, authored by an economist at Dartmouth, Andrew Samwick, who spends a lot of time thinking and writing about Social Security and related issues. Samwick, based on a quick look, supports privatization, but not privatization as it would be done by those currently in power.
  

AB