Via Daily Kos Bruce Webb writes: When the Ryan Roadmap to Prosperity/2013 Republican House Budget was released some otherwise sharp observers like Ezra Klein claimed it just gave Social Security a pass: Here is Paul Ryan’s path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor […]

This item confirms that the Northwest Plan for Social Security would work rather well for Congress, Social Security, and beneficiaries. Beltway conventional wisdom thought otherwise. My own reaction was of puzzlement by the Beltway conventional wisdom. Fiscal Times reports: We’ve already seen evidence that consumers have largely shrugged off this year’s expiration of the payroll tax […]

Bloomberg’s Josh Barro is the lead writer for the Ticker, Bloomberg View’s blog on economics, finance and politics. Social Security is the healthiest component of the U.S.’s retirement saving system Last week I wrote that Social Security is the healthiest component of the U.S.’s retirement saving system and should therefore be expanded. This isn’t a […]

Richard Eskow  points us to a trend with liberals media types and Social Security: A President Who’ll Cut Social Security — And Liberals Who Love Him Too Much The spectacle of a supposedly liberal president repeatedly and needlessly trying to cut Social Security is enough to bring a reasonable, economically literate person to the point […]

Via Truthout Dean Baker points to continuing insistent of President Obama to keep Social Security ‘on the table’. Dean Baker has a take on some numbers surrounding the politics and stories politicans offer: While most of the DC insiders probably don’t understand the chained CPI, everyone else should recognize that this technical fix amounts to […]

I was watching C span Washington Journal this morning.  Rep Marsha Blackburn was the guest.  I got to listen to her explanation of how the Social Security funds flow and just had to post the clip.   Copied from the transcript of the clip: THEIRS MONEY THAT GOES TO MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY AND I THINK […]

The Northwest Plan for a Real Social Security Fix was first introduced and revised in 2009. Obviously it was never adopted. Still the basic mechanism remains the same as does the rationale and working assumptions and in what follows I am going to assume a certain knowledge of the mechanics of Social Security finance and […]

The Northwest Plan for a Real Social Security Fix was introduced and then revised in 2009, explaining why the post link references ‘Vers 2.0’. What makes the NW Plan ‘real’ is that it is both permanent and contingent. To explain this mild paradox lets take an analogy. Let’s say you have a 1935 Duesenberg that […]

Social Security Data Mining Mrs. Rustbelt, the sweet young lady I married, decided to investigate future benefits from Social Security, even though she is only “39.” I am her designated data entry clerk, so we sit down and establish an account and log-in for her. Near the end of the set-up process the software tells […]

Bruce Webb brings an interesting perspective to the current situation as pundits and politicians figure out ‘what is acceptable’ and what ‘they can live with’ her at AB and at his new website Social Security Defender: (see link below): Scheduled vs Payable Benefits: three definitions of Solvency As usual click to embiggen. When it comes […]