by Dale Coberly OH NOES! SOCIAL SECURITY IS BROKE AGAIN AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! BECAUSE… BECAUSE… BECAUSE WE’RE ALL GOING TO LIVE FOREVER A couple of public spirited citizens have taken some of their Own Time to warn us that Social Security is (taken from last January) “worse than you think.” They take […]
by Dale Coberly SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON SOCIAL SECURITY HOW THE “COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET” LIES TO YOU A group that calls itself “Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget” wrote what it claims to be “Setting the Record Straight on Social Security.” The article needs to be responded to at some length, […]
By Dale Coberly HOW MUCH INTEREST DOES SOCIAL SECURITY PAY? A reader asked what interest does Social Security pay on your “investment”? I think it is important to realize that this is not the important question about Social Security. Social Security is an insurance program and it doesn’t make any more sense to talk about […]
by Dale Coberly FLYING SAUCERS, THE YOUNG, and SOCIAL SECURITY What if the Social Security Trust Fund WAS Worthless IOU’s George Bush liked to tell us “the young” were more likely to believe in flying saucers than they were to believe they would ever see any benefits from Social Security. First, let me assure you […]
by Dale Coberly PERNICIOUS IGNORANCE ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY A REPLY TO KRASTING Bruce Krasting in comments to Bruce’s post on Social Security made a number of claims that deserve a fuller answer than I was able to give in comments. Below in quotes are Krasting’s claims followed by my replies. I hope I am reasonably […]
Total Security on Planet Elsinore: a Social Security Thought Game (Part 1) – Set the gameboard and initial rules for Total Security or TS for short. To recap the USE a democratic republic polity on Planet Elsinore has a long established government retirement security program called Total Security paid for by an across the income […]
Lets play a game. The ultimate point of the game is to understand certain aspects of Social Security but to keep complications from creeping in too early (wait for later parts) we are going to start with simple game play on a board far, far away. In fact on distant yet oddly Earth-like Planet Elsinore. […]
Dean Baker was polite in responding to another story from the Washington Post in the campaign to discredit the program: That’s what the headline of the front page Washington Post story might have read if the purpose was to inform readers. Instead the lengthy piece (which covers the whole back page) told readers that Social […]
by Dale Coberly How to Sound Insane by Talking Like a Bi Partisan Expert on Social Security I apologize for the next couple of paragraphs because they sound overworked and insane, but that’s what happens when you try to illustrate the way Washington talks about Social Security. Try to imagine you have to buy a medicine […]
When the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal reports on THE federal budget deficit what number do they use? When OMB gives a top line number for THE deficit what is included or not? In particular is Social Security included? Now some will immediately jump in and say, and perfectly correctly, that Social […]