by Dale Coberly DEAR PAUL KRUGMANPlease Read This about Social Security Dear Paul Krugman, There was an indication the other day that you read Angry Bear, at least sometimes. I hope you read this, because it is important, and you have a better forum than I have. I think the following facts would be game […]

Note that in this table from 2010 a full fix is 0.6. And that the North West Plan is close to Options 2 and 3.

by Dale CoberlyFareed Zakaria on Social Security Fareed Hearts Pete Peterson Disses your mom Fareed Zakaria wrote an essay for Time, The Baby Boom and Financial Doom. Dean Baker responded to Zakaria with Fareed Zakaria is unhappy that the American left chooses arithmetic over Peter Peterson. Baker makes the point that the increase in the number […]

There are a number of well thought out plans to handle the problems proposed by opponents of Social Security and also those concerned about its sustainability. To have our political and media debate confined to one item like chained-cpi should make any reasonable voter pause and wonder “Is that all? How dumb can we be?” […]

by Dale CoberlySOCIAL SECURITY and Uncle Sam moving parts edition Most of us have heard the “phony iou” claim about the Social Security Trust Fund, with its accompanying cartoon of a hapless Uncle Sam furiously borrowing from his left pocket to fill up his right pocket, and stuffing “worthless iou’s” into the left pocket to […]

by Dale Coberly SOCIAL SECURITYSweet Reasonableness and Fact Checkers Apparently the Big Liars are getting worried about the fact that “Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.” There have been a flurry of little Big Liars “proving” that in fact SS is a contributor to the Deficit. I am going to try to […]

by Dale Coberly (Dan here…Dale Coberly replies to this article (Is it Becoming Too Late to Fix Social Security’s Finances?) by Charles Blahous). Blahous, You do not seem to grasp how small “4% of the tax base” is,  or how very reasonable it would be to pay that 4% for a longer, richer retirement, out […]

A book review by Dale Coberly ONE NATION UNDER AARP  The Fight Over Medicare, Social Security, and America’s Futureby Frederick R. Lynch I was asked to write a review of this book, perhaps because I sometimes write about Social Security. But I had to completely rearrange my perspective in order to even understand what the […]

Eric Larson is interviewed about Social Security and his new book The People’s Pension: The War Against Social Security from Reagan to Obama (AK Press, Spring 2012): Eric Laursen is an independent journalist who’s been covering political and financial news for more than a quarter-century. He’s been studying Social Security for the past 15 years, […]

by Dale CoberlySocial SecurityThe Fundamental TruthIf you don’t understand this, you don’t understand Social Security. If you do understand it, all the rest is minor technical detail… or utter nonsense. Social Security is not welfare. Social Security is not an investment plan. Social Security is insurance… to avoid welfare if your investment plan doesn’t work […]