Sunday, January 09, 2005

"Fixing" Social Security Out of Existence

From leading political writer and blogger Josh Marshall....

" #8 on Jim Cramer's list of ten business predictions for the coming year (in New York magazine ...)

'8. The President will ram Social Security 'reform' through Congress by getting brokerage houses to lobby for the change.

George Bush will promise Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Schwab, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns the contract to privatize Social Security and let them be the administrators of the project. These firms will then get their employees to give millions to politicians who are on the fence. Their stocks will triple in value from the prospect of the new business, they’ll pressure the Republican-led Congress for swift passage in the fall of 2005, and the deal will get done.'

Certainly, part of the plan."

And Social Security retirement.... yours, mine, everyones..... will effectively be gone. A functioning, reliable system, fully funded for the next 35 years and easily modified for the next 75 years, will be "fixed" out of existence. And the pricetag for this badly flawed, pseudo-fix will be $2 trillion of taxpayers' money (and that's President Bush's estimate.)

No comments: