Re: HOMESTEAD: COG and SocSec

[Deborah Groban Olson <dgo@esoplaw.com>]

OK Homesteaders, I'll try not to be close minded. Your comments rattle me to my 
labor roots. So what do you propose?
Deb
At 10:17 PM 4/22/01 -0500, you wrote:
>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
>