OpinionJournal.com: A Political Case for Social Security Reform

Individual accounts would protect retirees from the government interference.
BY GARY BECKER
Monday, February 21, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Republicans and Democrats are arguing passionately about the future of Social Security, and the argument, at its core, is about privatization. It is true, as some critics observe, that there is no magical gain in privatizing Social Security, since all systems have to provide incomes for retired persons. By that token, however, there's no gain in privatizing a government steel plant either, since steel still has to be produced, too. Yet there are very good reasons--with roots in political economy--to privatize steel. And as with steel (and the like), there are excellent reasons for a privatized individual-account Social Security system... the really strong arguments for privatization are that they reduce the role of government in determining retirement ages and incomes, and improve government accounting of revenues and spending obligations. All the other issues are really diversions, because neither advocates nor opponents of privatizing Social Security generally answer the most meaningful question: Is there as strong a political economy case for eliminating government management of the retirement industry as there is for eliminating its management of most other industries? My answer is "yes."

Nobelist Becker knows a thing or two about economics, but he and most other pundits are missing the blinkingly obvious reason why Social Security privitization is being opposed by the Gimme Generation and its bought-and-paid-for politicians.

Think about it: to whom does Social Security income matter most? Answer: To those for whom the measly monthly stipend represents most or all of their retirement income. These are people who by definition have failed to adequately save for retirement on their own. Is it any surprise they fear a system that puts matters into their own hands, even incrementally, even with cautious phase-in that exempts those dependent on the current system, even with redundant safety-nets to catch the unlucky or ill-prepared, and even with spectacularly successful examples from Galveston County to Peru?

Unfortunately it seems that the naysaying chorus of grabby grayhairs is being joined by younger folks, descendants of several generations of increasing (and increasingly reflexive) governmental dependency, and willfully blind to the economic facts of our national Ponzi scheme and its failed brethren abroad. Social Security reform will still happen eventually here--the current system is utterly unsustainable--but my hopes dim that we will see the first baby-steps towards an "ownership society" anytime soon.

Uh-oh: Economist.com | Germany's jobless

[snip]

Some economic numbers are as resonant as they are significant. One such figure was announced on Wednesday February 2nd by Germany's Federal Labour Agency. More than 5m Germans were unemployed last month, the agency revealed, the most since 1932, when the economic devastation of the Great Depression brought the Weimar Republic to an unhappy end.

[snip]

Gotta love that British knack for understatement.

Doug had a vision:

WANTED: Uneducated whacko with funny mustache and hypnotic stare. Must be a commanding public speaker and very patriotic.

POSITION: Head of one of the most civilized and technically advanced countries in Europe.

Candidate with good motivational skills could easily progress to command of the whole EU within five years.

...The Brits may have understatement, but we Yanks have black humor down cold.

Down syndrome youth used as suicide bomber: TheAge.com

Amar was 19, but he had the mind of a four-year-old. This handicap didn't stop the insurgency's hard men as they strapped explosives to his chest and guided him to a voting centre in suburban Al-Askan.

...And that's what we're up against.

Ali Ibn Abi Talib encountered a man called 'Umru and told him, "I indeed invite you to Islam." 'Umru said, "I do not need that." Ali said, "Then I call you to fight." (This was the same policy Muhammad used with those who rejected his invitation.) 'Umru answered him, "What for my nephew? By God, I do not like to kill you." Ali said, "But, by God, I love to kill you."
--ibn Hisham, "The Biography of the Prophet", part 3, p. 113; see also Al Road Al Anf part 3, p. 263.

They're coming for you, 'Umru.

Statement of Bill Wood, Charlotte, North Carolina

"Gramsci wrote, 'The conception of law will have to be freed from every remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism.'..."

Click that link above right now. It's a remarkable read, and that gem he unearthed, glittering in the block-quote above, is just one of many.

And, yup:

The Sunday Telegraph

No job no excuse for turning down sex work
By Clare Chapman in Berlin and John Garnaut

January 31, 2005

[snip]

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services" at a brothel in Berlin faces cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany two years ago and brothel owners - who must pay tax and employee health insurance - were granted access to official databases of job seekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe. She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile" and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did she realise she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month, to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest level since reunification in 1990.

The Government considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars.

"There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits."

[snip]

"What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along?"

Well here's something that greatly comforts me.

I've been waiting days now for something from some leftist that has nice things to say about the dawning of democracy in Iraq.

Something from some leftist about how maybe the war was about more than a treasure-hunt for WMDs.

Something from some leftist that might touch on the host of reasons that forced us into war with a megalomaniacal dictator who credibly threatened us and our allies and his own people, and who acted on those threats on more than one occasion.

Something from some leftist that might reflect on the flip-flopping disingenuousness of the sainted Scott Ritter, who (hat tip to Tim Blair) in 1999 warned:

I have grown convinced that there has been a total breakdown in the willingness of the international community to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein is well on the road to getting his sanctions lifted and keeping his weapons in the bargain. A resurgent Iraq, reinvigorated economically and politically by standing up successfully to the United States and the United Nations, will be a very dangerous Iraq-one that sooner or later will have to be confronted by American military might.

(...I guess that was before Ritter was paid $400,000 to film a pro-Saddam movie by an Iraqi-American supporter of Saddam Hussein, Shakir al-Khafaji...)

Something from some leftist that didn't aid and comfort the enemy.

Something from some leftist that didn't sound like their hearts were breaking at the prospect of an American-style constitutional republic taking root in Iraq, despite the success of exactly that outcome in venues as diverse as Germany and Japan.

Something from some leftist that wasn't, at its root, a sneer.

Something from some leftist that rejoices in the truly good news at the core of the Iraq election-- news which by itself, by merely happening, shakes the Middle East to the enduring benefit of mankind.

Something from some leftist that rejoices in the blunt fact that the citizenry of Iraq defied saber-rattling from bloodthirsty islamist head-hackers and voted in numbers that simply stagger.

Something from some leftist that welcomed the Maalox Moments suddenly afflicting dictators, jihadis and theocrats throughout the region. This democracy thing can be catching, you see.

Something from some leftist that reflects awe that from the ashes of 9/11 arose profound moments of hope: first in Afghanistan, now in Iraq.

Something from some leftist that celebrates the end of enslavement for millions, including the burkha'd women who bravely trudged to the polls.

Something from some leftist that acknowledges this scintillating validation of the Bush Doctrine.

Something from some leftist that reflects on the wisdom of addressing the root causes of islamist terrorism, rather than lobbing the occasional cruise missile at an empty tent when headlines grow inconvenient.

Something from some leftist that acknowledges the necessity of ending terror-supporting regimes just as an oncologist strives to obliterate the blood supply to a metastasizing tumor.

Something from some leftist that revels in the proof that we--and the principles of liberty--can not only prevail in those allegedly inviolate Afghan mountains, but against the megalomaniac likes of Saddam, and against an urban insurgency.

Something from some leftist that grants that Iraq is the global Roach Motel for terrorists, and that they are losing.

Something from some leftist that admits that the modern art of terror upshifted with each and every display of appeasement, avoidance and weakness from the likes of Carter and Clinton, and that those days are over.

Something from some leftist that approves of how jihadis now must fear and respect America's newfound spine... and muscle.

Something from some leftist that celebrates a country no longer blithely unaware of the mounting threat, slumbering in a gauzy dreamworld woven over a decade of its leaders' conceits and malfeasance.

Something from some leftist that expresses gratitude for the sacrifice of fallen coalition troops.

Something from some leftist that decries how the Party of "Democrats" has morphed into the Party whose contribution to the rebirth of liberty in Iraq sums to hoots and derision.

Something from some leftist that notes how the Democrat Party should just skip right to the chase and rename itself the Benign Elitist Party, fast friend of tyrants petty and prodigious.

Something from some leftist advising John Kerry and Ted Kennedy to shut the hell up.

This comes close enough:

What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along?
February 1, 2005
BY MARK BROWN, SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Maybe you're like me and have opposed the Iraq war since before the shooting started -- not to the point of joining any peace protests, but at least letting people know where you stood... But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?

It's hard to swallow, isn't it?

[snip]

For those who've been in the same boat with me, we don't need to concede the point just yet. There's a long way to go. But I think we have to face the possibility.

I won't say that it had never occurred to me previously, but it's never gone through my mind as strongly as when I watched the television coverage from Iraq that showed long lines of people risking their lives by turning out to vote, honest looks of joy on so many of their faces.

Some CNN guest expert was opining Monday that the Iraqi people crossed a psychological barrier by voting and getting a taste of free choice (setting aside the argument that they only did so under orders from their religious leaders).

I think it's possible that some of the American people will have crossed a psychological barrier as well...

[snip]