Re: HOMESTEAD: COG and SocSec

[John Médaille <john@medaille.com>]

At 08:08 PM 4/22/01 -0400, Deborah Groban Olson wrote:
>Dear Thomas:
>
>         I agree with you that we may want to use the SS privatization 
> debate to make our ideas look less "far out". But I personally do not 
> want to lend any support to the idea of privatizing Social Security.

SS, a currently constituted, does not appear to be a sustainable system. It 
will be changed to something else, something quite different. One 
possibility is to simply make it meaningless by, for example, constantly 
raising the retirement age, cutting benefits, or (what is much the same 
thing) monkey with the "inflation" rate so that effective benefits decline. 
Another possibility is to "privatize" it (i.e., disavow it). In either 
case, it will be changed into something else, and the process has already 
started. What we have is a third way, and a viable one. Actually, we have a 
variety of viable third ways. You and Mr. Brandt are quite correct that we 
cannot simply abandon the system. But there is no reason not to present the 
alternatives that policy makers are seeking, and by doing so, advance one 
of the best reasons for spreading ownership.

Rather then support for privatization, we do need to look at the 
alternatives being proposed and explain why our way is the best. The will 
be vast amount of funds expended in some sort of transition. I 
certainly  do not think the issue is one of supporting the Pres. Shrub's 
privatization plan, but rather of presenting something that would actually 
work.


John C. Médaille

"A dead thing can go with the stream...
but only a living thing can go against it."
         -G. K. Chesterton
http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm
john@medaille.com