Comments for Robert Samuelson Shows that the Post Has no Fact Checkers on Its Opinion Pages at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 36 out of 20 comments http://www.cepr.net Sun, 26 May 2013 00:31:34 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15866 Quite right, Blissex. But Karen is right that a theft occurred. She just is not describing the big con correctly. It rarely is. The Trust Fund is more or less an accounting record of how many dollars were stolen from working people over the last thirty years, and then given to the rich in the numerous welfare-for-the-rich con games that have become most of the government - e.g. the military-industrial complex. - Calgacus Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:56:58 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15856 «all private savings accounts like 401ks are all far more dubious IOUs, as all Wall Street stocks and bonds are just IOUs that often become worthless,» More precisely a private pension account or a 401K is a set of IOUs that promise to you not money, but other IOUs that are stocks and bonds. Because when you open a private pension account or a 401K you don't actually get the IOUs that are stocks and bonds anymore; you pay in real dollars and you just get IOUs that promise to you that maybe you will get some IOUs some day in the future if you really insist. Private pension accounts and 401Ks are basically as good as you trust a bunch of IOUs that promise other IOUs, any of which may become worth zero at any time, and you pay a Wall Street banker and broker a huge commission for managing those IOUs. Trust your retirement to that. BTW the "social security trust fund is just IOUs" talking point which has been pushed so aggressively by the neoliberal propaganda is pretty dangerous for Wall Street, banks and insurers, precisely because all they sell is IOUs (which are far less reliable than treasuries.) I wonder if it is in the interests of Wall Street, banks and insurers to fund neoliberal propaganda aimed at ensuring that people think of IOUs as bad worthless things. - Blissex Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:25:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15855 When I read breathtaking statements like "then stole them all and wrote a big IOU and dropped it in the drawer" when those IOUs are interest paying treasury bonds I am amazed. Because what is in all private savings accounts like 401ks are all far more dubious IOUs, as all Wall Street stocks and bonds are just IOUs that often become worthless, if they don't disappear entirely because people like Madoff or MF Global just steal the money and IOUs that clients have deposited when them,as another commented writes: «SS is insurance in case your imaginary bank fails to deliver you imaginary return on investment». That's why many people buy Treasury bonds and keep them in a USA Treasury account, which are much safer: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/ - Blissex Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:40:54 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15854 It is often forgotten that the dependency ratio is not just old people to working people; it it also children to working people, because they both require expenditure that they are getting for free. Whether it is schools or pensions. What matters in other words is the ratio of working people to the population, that is the participation rate, which has had ups and downs, but not dramatic ones. - Blissex Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:32:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15853 Return SS to the setup created by the Reagan/Greenspan/O'Neil deal: set the cap so that 90% of national wages are taxed. This is how the cap was set in 1982, but the cap was indexed to inflation. Since wages at the high end have gone up faster than inflation, we're no longer taxing 90% of the country's paychecks. So boost the cap to $185,000 and adjust it annually so that 90% rate is maintained. Then raise the SS tax rate by .1% for the next ten years. No one is going to notice or care if their contribution rises by $1 per week per year. Then have the actuaries get back to me and tell me how many decades have been added to SS solvency. Social Security is not facing a crisis or even a large problem. Medical costs are 98% of the long term problem, yet we continue to spend 98% of our time arguing about other things. - BH in MA Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:03:53 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15845 I was pretty clearly referring to raising the cap on SS taxes, the point being that you could do this in such a way that the results would be identical to means testing, only it would eliminate the need for means testing. This idea would be bitterly opposed by SS "reformers," proving that their "progressive" reforms are utterly disingenuous and a transparent ploy to undermine the whole program. Not sure how you got the idea of a flat tax on all income out of that one. I'm guessing it's similar to the way fervent Catholics are apt to see the image of Mary on every peanut butter jar and burnt piece of toast they come across. When you're abnormally fixated on some sacred object of obsession--the flat tax in this case--it starts to show up in strange places. - RL Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:18:47 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15844 So now RL says make the flat tax extend to all incomes. This is getting awfully efficient now. Of course you mean limiting their SS payouts to the $104,000 level, but just raising their taxes. Indeed this is far better then tinkering with marginal rates now envisioned. So 12.5% on all income (including cap gains and dividends). This gets very close to the 1980s Cato prescription. For some reason folks think that 70% rates with things like huge deductions for LLPs and interest on cars and credit cards is better than lower rates and no deductions.....go figure. Flatten it baby. - pete Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:03:05 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15842 I find it interesting that all the people seeking to "reform" social security are currently in favor of means testing. Why is there not a single one in favor of simply raising the payroll tax on the wealthy? Pete Peterson is so fabulously wealthy that he does not need SS; OK then, why not raise his payroll tax by an amount that would be equivalent to him forfeiting his SS income? This plan would be virtually identical to means testing, in terms of individuals' present-value, after-tax income, so why can one not find a single advocate of it among "reformers"? It can't be because of any extra expense in collecting and distributing SS, which would be truly infinitesimal. It's perfectly obvious: the end goal is to undermine the entire SS system, and what better way to do that than to stigmatize it as a form of welfare for poor people, a handout from independent, hard-working Americans to ungrateful shirkers content to live on the dole? - RL Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:21:11 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15839 Wow! You are saying I am screwing up because the present value of the liabilities really really outweigh the revenues. Or maybe you are saying that they should be disconnected. Absolutely! That is exactly the point. Definitely then a pay go system, hence the need to stop talking about the immensely undercapitalized "fund" and simply concentrate on how to pay the liabilities, and whether they should be adjusted in the future, like means testing with a Buffett rule..no SS for those making over $1,000,000 a year. - pete Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:12:55 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15837 pete the present value of SS is less than the present value of an imaginary investment at an imaginary interest in an imaginary bank with imaginary risks. but if you can understand that SS is insurance in case your imaginary bank fails to deliver you imaginary return on investment, you might understand why it is a good buy. and if you knew that at least fifty percent of workers receive benefits far in excess of the imaginary bank's imaginary interest, you might begin to understand why everyone prefers Social Security to your inadequately considered calculations. - coberly Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:02:43 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15835 look a the bright side, as long as samuelson is employed, we will know whose side the major media is on. - vorpal Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:56:55 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15832 Great post as always. While you're at it, any chance you could weigh in on the Rs' claim of "double-counting" Medicare savings (e.g., in today's WaPo p. A3)? I see some old BTB posts on that but I think it could use the Baker treatment again. - Gary Storrs Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:42:39 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15829 It was due to the change in the growth of income distribution, with so much more of the income growth going to the rich rather than the 99% and particularly the 95%. - DonB Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:00:18 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15828 In 2005, Business Week published an article (the link to which I have lost) that explained why the FICA tax has not provided the revenue that was expected by the 1986 SS law that created rules for building the trust fund to cover the population bubble (Baby Boom) while the population growth slowed down. - DonB Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:52:17 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15823 Yes the source is tax revenues...exactly...just like Apple's price is the sale of future gadgets. I think we are on the same page. Difference is, if present trends continue, the SS fund has a negative value, i.e., the present value of its liabilities, future payments, are far less than the present value of its future SS tax revenues. In this sense it is not like Apple. Most important, is that SS at heart, in the pay as you go, is just a transfer, not a real burden on the economy. It does not consume GDP. It just shuffles it around. If everybody got triple the SS overnight, it would just mean triple the taxes or whatever. No more beer and pretzels...just giving more beer and pretzels to the old farts. (Yeah!) These transfers could lower GDP, in the sense that young folks might have a higher MPC than us oldsters. One solution would be to have the Fed pay SS checks directly, rather than monetizing the debt which will be issued to pay SS. Currently if the fund cashes in one its "bonds" the Treasury will issue a public bond, get cash, and give the cash to SS to pay out. We could skip the charade and have new money be introduced directly via SS payments. This might actually get the inflation that Krugman is begging for. - pete Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:32:23 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15822 I didn't get exercised by the Samuelson piece because I long ago quit subjecting myself to him. You do a great job of calling him out. Thanks. What I don't understand is why you expect opinion pages to have fact checkers. The problem with having Samuelson on the page is not that nobody's holding him to account. It's hiring him in the first place. - snaildarter Tue, 10 Apr 2012 03:43:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15818 Pete and others argue: the SS Trust Fund is gov't bonds, which are just future tax liabilities, ergo it's not really a fund. Yeah, ok. So what do you imagine a fund to be? A lockbox storing what exactly? Stocks? Corporate bonds? Gold? Ok, so let's review. Stock= promise of future dividends earned through the labor of those same 2 workers/retiree. Corporate bonds are no different. What else? Gold? Ok, so you pay for high storage cost, hoping that price will trend with inflation. Then again, were government to start buying gold at the needed scale, it would create huge distortions -- massive price runups during the buying phase, and price collapses when selling. In the end, there is no investment that gets around the demographic aging of the population. The young will have to support the old. The PAYGO approach based on the safest investment available -- US Gov't bonds -- is the only sensible system given the scale of the undertaking. What the Trust Fund insures is not that "money will be there," but that the promised payments won't be cut willy-nilly by a Congress guided by Samuelson's pied piper song. - vasilgrozny Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:20:44 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15817 Social security was "absolutely segregated"? Yes, they tabulated the funds separately, then stole them all and wrote a big IOU and dropped it in the drawer. The net result of this sleight-of-hand is that the funds were commingled with the general fund and spent, and they are gone. Suggesting that some initial step of acknowledging a balance before it's borrowed and spent is tantamount to segregation is patently absurd. - Karen Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:04:26 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15810 For the umpteenth time, here is FDR himself on Social Security & taxation: "We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics.” [url]http://www.ssa.gov/history/Gulick.html[/url] Social Security was designed and administered by MMT economists, or Institutionalists & Keynesians as they were called back then. Many were students of John R. Commons, who Keynes said was the economist whose thought was the closest to his, and whose magnum opus, [i]Institutional Economics[/i], particularly the central, book-length chapter on "Futurity" is very enlightening, clear and valuable. Taxes don't pay for social security. They just restrict consumption, disinflate when they are taken out of the workers' hands, and thereby maintain the value of the dollar and of federal payments, including SS to retirees. Greenspan, three decades ago convinced the innumerate, abetted by the maniacs, monsters and morons called academic economists, that the government could and should do the impossible and save up its own debt, and used FDR's political protection as a tool to destroy SS and the US middle class. Of course, if you want to pay the silly Trust Fund game, a sensibler thing would be to just increase the interest rate in the Trust Fund, as Pete recommends. And of course the Greenspan gross overtaxation was just a welfare-for-the-rich scam. - Calgacus Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:32:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-samuelson-shows-that-the-post-has-no-fact-checkers-on-its-opinion-pages#comment-15806 you don't seem to know much, but boy are you sure about what you think you know. SS is not welfare. it was made "not welfare" for a reason. that means it is not "needs based." it pays you a benefit based on your contribution without any need to meet a "needs test." when you are old and poor and need your Social Security you will understand why this is important. - coberly Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:57:39 +0100