Has any modelled

[james_davis_nicoll]

The consequences had US social security been privatized in the early '00s?

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I suspect the popular belief "I won't see a cent from Social Security" has largely been spread by financial planners.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Nah. It's just at a toxic intersection of generational and partisan politics.

People of all political alignments fret about the lack of long-range planning in the world, but the truth of the matter is, humans are badly inconsistent in how we value future events. Our internal discount rate is something of a funhouse mirror. This has been known since the 1970s, but very poorly publicized.

[izeinwinter.livejournal.com]

And then they recommend putting savings into investment funds that are almost entirely invested in US assets, thereby providing absolutely no protection against that eventuality. SS is immensely politically important, which means the government will only give up on it if the US economy is in really dire straits.. in which case, the savings veichles sold by these financial planners will not pay out much either.

Heck, due to the structure of most private pension plans, social security being fine while your private pension fund largely collapses is a far more likely event than the opposite- pension plans are invested in particular firms, after all, while SS taxes the economy as a whole, so a decade or two of high economic growth caused and accompanied by high levels of disruptive technological innovation and creative destruction in the market would make SS stronger, while burning a lot of investment funds. - Basically, in a world where by 2050 all energy is produced licened indian fast breeder designs, manufacturing is mostly done by public domain nanotech technologies perfected by a EU /China project at the university of Ankara, the largest food producers on the planet are the greenhouses in North Africa, and the second american revolution ended copyright, your stockportfolio is not going to be worth beans, but the tax base of the US is fine.

It is certainly /possible/ to put together a savings profile that would provide some security against the economy of the US doing badly enough to imperil SS.. but no finanical planner is likely to sell it to you.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I'm putting all my money into Franklin Mint Civil War Chess Sets.

[death4breakfast.livejournal.com]

I'm expecting a better ROI on the Classic Trek Chess Set.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I suppose you have all heard about the guy who bought both? "...so the South can fight the Klingons."

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

(I wish I knew to whom that joke should be attributed.)

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

It was someone's USENET tagline for a while. A quick Google for it says Mike Chary, and he credits Dave Spensley:

"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now I have the South fight the Klingons." -- Dave Spensley

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that bit of scholarship. I see Mr. Spensley using it in his own sigfile at least as early as 21 August 1994.

I wonder whether people will be retelling any of my jokes seventeen years from now.

P.S. Why must Google Groups be so unreliable?

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

The problem with having the South fight the Klingons is, who do you root for? :)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6zDg0dKygE

[traviswells.livejournal.com]

As a southerner, lemme just say that's an easy question to answer.

Definitely the Klingons.

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

It was about states' rights, dammit, not about corrugated foreheads!