Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site uwmacc.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!hplabs!pesnta!amd!amdcad!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!myers From: myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Latitudinarian Lobster) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Social Security vs Social Welfare Message-ID: <1673@uwmacc.UUCP> Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 13:58:02 EST Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1673 Posted: Sat Nov 9 13:58:02 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 15-Nov-85 21:05:31 EST References: <756@whuxl.UUCP> <29200244@uiucdcs> <361@whuts.UUCP> <1270@mhuxt.UUCP> <784@whuxl.UUCP> <10936@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: Ken Kopp's Fresh Seafood Tank Lines: 105 > Sevener, you never fail to amaze me. I didn't think that anyone other than > Tip O'Spendit could actually spout that propaganda with a straight face. > OK. (1) Nobody currently receiving social security paid into the program > anything like what they're getting out. The relationship between payments > made and benefits received is essentially nonexistent. Those currently > receiving benefits have contributed a small fraction of the amount they > receive. Statistics? The statistics quoted should use 1972 dollars, so that inflation is taken into account. My Dad's buck in 1935 is a little different than his buck today. Both he and I are glad that he is receiving some of his money back from SS. > ...It > is a poor social program, as well: it transfers from the poor to the rich, > from the working to the idle, and from the young to the old. Yeah, death to the idle, rich oldsters! Better not let a Gray Panther hear you talk, buddy. > Milton Friedman points out... Ah, it all becomes clear now. I heard Friedmanite Chicago School economic policies pulled a real coup in Chile. Pretty funny, huh? Get it, coup in Chile! Yuk, yuk. Maybe Rick can tell us how the Chileans didn't REALLY follow Friedman's policies to explain the failure of their economy. > Bingo. I'm 28, and I'll never see a nickel of Social Security. A combination > of extended lifespans and fewer young workers will see Social Security to its > deserved death long before 2022, or whenever it is that I retire -- and I'll > bet that the same demographic forces that kill SS will keep me working well > into my 70s, at least: of course, I'm at the age where that doesn't sound > unattractive. I'm more worried about nuclear war. For today's lesson in basic governmental economics, let's turn to the February 1983 issue of *Monthly Review*. I sent this article to my conservative parents, and it impressed them. Let's look at the short term, first. There are three separate trust funds set up under the social security system. Here are some projections of trust fund assets from the Congressional Budget Office, quoted in the June 6, 1982 issue of the *New York Times*: Assets in Trust Funds in Billions of Dollars End Year Old Age and Disability Hospital Combined Survivors Ins. Insurance Insurance Funds ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1982 12.6 6.4 21.0 40.0 1983 2.8 6.2 22.1 31.1 1984 -16.6 14.9 21.1 19.4 1985 -33.5 30.2 18.4 15.1 1986 -50.5 50.8 15.7 16.0 1987 -69.1 75.1 10.0 16.0 ``All the hue and cry about insolvency stems exclusively from the estimated negative figures ... in the first column of the above table. It has no other basis whatsoever.... One obvious way to straighten out what is really a very minor difficulty, in spite of the big numbers involved, is to change the allocation of payroll-tax inflow among the three trust funds.'' MR, pp. 8-9. I'm not sure whether anything along this line has been done, but I don't believe so. The article goes on to point out that, when the baby boom generation gets old and needs to collect social security, there won't be as many children around to support, and thus the overall number of dependants being supported by society will not change much. The author (Jacob Morris) concludes: ``The main purpose of the gross exaggeration of the Social Security crisis of the twenty-first century is to demoralize the active workers who pay the current taxes which provide the current benefits for the retired workers, who are their parents and grandparents. The crisis- mongers [like our own Rick] want to drive a wedge between the generations; they want to weaken the political opposition of the younger workers to the current attack on the benefits of their parents and grandparents. But beyond that the enemies of Social Security want to soften up the many millions of young workers for a dismantling of the whole system and for its partial replacement by individual insurance and private company pensions.'' > The difference is that most such programs are actuarially sound -- and those > that aren't go broke. SS is run on principles that would make an actuary > puke, and when it goes tits up -- every decade, or thereabouts -- another > generation is stiffed to pay for the mistakes of the past. One of these days > the con won't fly anymore. > > Rick. Well, let's look at the actual input and output from the three funds in recent years. These figures are from table B-71 of the 1985 *Economic Report of the President*, a book every budding Friedmanite should own (I got my copy for $1.50) (figures below are in billions): 76 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Receipts 90.8 157.8 182.7 201.5 209.0 241.7 268.4 289.4 Outlays 89.7 150.6 178.7 202.5 223.3 235.7 257.4 269.4 The 85 and 86 figures are, of course, projections. Note how the trend corroborates the figures given in the *Times* article of 1982. Good job, Rick -- your lack of skill as a truthsayer is rivaled only by your sexism (tits up, indeed). Por la defensa de la verdad, jeff myers