Social Insecurity
Thursday, February 3rd, 2005 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwydIt seems like one solution for budget problems -- social security and otherwise -- that Bush didn't mention last night is to increase the wages of workers. I would love to see some statistics on Social Security's future if the minimum wage were raised fifty cents to a dollar or if the average American worker earned several thousand dollars more a year.
The great thing about this plan is that it benefits workers today as well as when they retire.
Diverting money into private accounts, on the other hand, doesn't even solve the problem it's mentioned in conjunction with. An increase in the ratio of people who pay in to private accounts to people who draw benefits will cause a decrease in the fund. So not only will the money have to come from somewhere during the transition period, if private accounts aren't popular for awhile (such as distrust in the stock market), when participation picks up, Social Security may be in crisis yet again.
In other state of the union observations, does anyone else think Laura Bush claps like a seal? Her hands go more than shoulder width apart between each contact, but her elbows remain next to her ribs. And why did Nancy Pelosi think appearing on national television with four eyebrows would be a good idea?
And I like how in the span of two years the war justification went from "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" to "Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home."
In The Fog of War, Robert McNamara talked about a visit he made to Vietnam in the 1990s. He met with his North Vietnamese equivalent during the war, and asked "You lost more than two million people... why didn't you give up?" The response? "We were fighting for our independence. We would've fought even if we lost everyone." While it's convenient for Bush to portray the war in Iraq as a front in the war on terror, most of the terror is home-grown. There are Iraqi nationalists angry that their sovereignty has been usurped. There are Baathists unhappy that they are no longer in power. There's the Sunni minority afraid of retaliation. But Osama Bin Laden is not in Iraq.
Finally, Bush's "Iran must give up its nuclear enrichment programs" stance if he didn't advocate "safe" nuclear energy in the same speech. I can believe nuclear power plant design has improved since Three Mile Island. But I still haven't heard a good long-term waste solution. And all the anti-missle defense in the world won't protect against infiltration.
The great thing about this plan is that it benefits workers today as well as when they retire.
Diverting money into private accounts, on the other hand, doesn't even solve the problem it's mentioned in conjunction with. An increase in the ratio of people who pay in to private accounts to people who draw benefits will cause a decrease in the fund. So not only will the money have to come from somewhere during the transition period, if private accounts aren't popular for awhile (such as distrust in the stock market), when participation picks up, Social Security may be in crisis yet again.
In other state of the union observations, does anyone else think Laura Bush claps like a seal? Her hands go more than shoulder width apart between each contact, but her elbows remain next to her ribs. And why did Nancy Pelosi think appearing on national television with four eyebrows would be a good idea?
And I like how in the span of two years the war justification went from "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" to "Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home."
In The Fog of War, Robert McNamara talked about a visit he made to Vietnam in the 1990s. He met with his North Vietnamese equivalent during the war, and asked "You lost more than two million people... why didn't you give up?" The response? "We were fighting for our independence. We would've fought even if we lost everyone." While it's convenient for Bush to portray the war in Iraq as a front in the war on terror, most of the terror is home-grown. There are Iraqi nationalists angry that their sovereignty has been usurped. There are Baathists unhappy that they are no longer in power. There's the Sunni minority afraid of retaliation. But Osama Bin Laden is not in Iraq.
Finally, Bush's "Iran must give up its nuclear enrichment programs" stance if he didn't advocate "safe" nuclear energy in the same speech. I can believe nuclear power plant design has improved since Three Mile Island. But I still haven't heard a good long-term waste solution. And all the anti-missle defense in the world won't protect against infiltration.
