Social Security
mikethemadbiologist | September 21, 2010Robert Samuelson has a penchant for willingly misinterpreting data. Time was, the newspaper bidness considered that to be a bad thing. Given his track record on Social Security, which led me to create the Samuelson Unit, it should be no surprise whatsoever that Samuelson screws up educational data.
Bob Somerby, rightfully offended by Samuelson's false claim that students have made no educational gains over the last forty years, asks, "Does Robert Samuelson hate black kids? It's always possible he doesn't--but he certainly seems to enjoy misstating their academic gains."
Somerby:
Among 17-…
mikethemadbiologist | August 18, 2010'Progressives' are getting all gooey over Obama's stern declaration that he will prevent Republicans from privatizing Social Security.
So why am I being so harsh towards Obama? Because this is a sucker play. Given Obama's track record on most issues so far, it's pretty obvious what will happen next:
1) Obama issues a stern declaration about 'protecting Social Security.' Of course, no one was seriously entertaining that idea on the legislative agenda. Until now. Up to this point, the debate (aka the 'Catfood Commission') has centered over future benefits (e.g., what is the age of…
mikethemadbiologist | July 4, 2010Over at Corrente, Joe Firestone provides details about one of the many false arguments about the Social Security 'crisis'--the claim that Social Security is DOOOMMMEEEEDDD!!! is based on incredibly pessimistic and historically unwarranted assumptions about GDP growth (italics mine):
Second, the deficit terrorist projections of GDP growth are way out of line with historical averages, and that is why they think we cannot grow our way out of hard times. In effect, they are projections from the Bush and recent Obama Presidencies. If one computes 10 year growth ratios of GDP unadjusted for…
mikethemadbiologist | June 28, 2010If you don't know who Pete Peterson is, let me help you (We like helping!):
...we can now return to the never-ending attempt by conservatives to gut Social Security. One of the key figures and bankrollers in that attempt is financier Peter Peterson. By key, I mean that he has spent around one billion dollars financing the Peterson Foundation, which advocates various 'fiscal responsibility' measures (i.e., making Granny eat cat food) and slashing Social Security benefits... But as always, one must follow the money, since Peterson's 'charity' seems rather self-interested--and not in the sense…
mikethemadbiologist | March 29, 2010Since healthcare is temporarily off the radar screen, despite Republican attempts to have Romneycare declared unconstitutional (how Romneycare would be unconstitutional, but Medicare wouldn't, well, that would be fun...), we can now return to the never-ending attempt by conservatives to gut Social Security. One of the key figures and bankrollers in that attempt is financier Peter Peterson. By key, I mean that he has spent around one billion dollars financing the Peterson Foundation, which advocates various 'fiscal responsibility' measures (i.e., making Granny eat cat food) and slashing…
mikethemadbiologist | March 15, 2010Friday, The NY Times reported on Greece's ongoing financial troubles. There is something to be said for discussing whether pensions should begin at age 50--it touches on economics, social values, and so on. But then the reporter refers to some 'analysis' by the Cato Institute:
According to research by Jagadeesh Gokhale, an economist at the Cato Institute in Washington, bringing Greece's pension obligations onto its balance sheet would show that the government's debt is in reality equal to 875 percent of its gross domestic product, which is the broadest measure of a nation's economic output…
mikethemadbiologist | February 16, 2010...make sure you know what the hell you're talking about. Jacob Weisberg had a recent post at Slate, "Down With the People: Blame the childish, ignorant American public--not politicians--for our political and economic crisis", which argues, well, what the title says. Now, we do have a longstanding tradition of calling idiots fucking morons in this humble bloggy abode, so we can't be upset with Weisberg's attempt (although, as usual, Lance Mannion does it far better than Weisberg, albeit with nuance, which is very French).
First, I actually don't agree with Weisberg when he writes, "We…
mikethemadbiologist | January 23, 2010...about President Obama. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) seems to be one of the few politicians in the Democratic caucus (not party, though) who understands just how dire the Democrats' prospects are:
In my view, the Democrats--including the president--have absurdly continued to stumble along the path of "bipartisanship" at exactly the same time the Republicans have waged the most vigorous partisan and obstructionist strategy in recent history.
Instead of making it clear that the first two years of the Obama administration would be about digging the country out of the incredible mess that…
mikethemadbiologist | December 30, 2009Ever since I was a wee Mad Biologist, I've been told by Very Senior People that 'in five years, there's going to be a massive wave a retirement of older faculty.' This, in my mind, ranks up there with the Friedman Unit (in the next six months, we'll know if we have to leave Iraq, and six months later, we need another six months to know this), and the Samuelson Unit (the length of time to the ULTIMATE DOOOMMM!!! of Social Security is always 30-38 years from the time of prediction). Consequently, we will have a 'science gap' since not enough U.S. students know TEH SCIENTISMZ!!, even though…
mikethemadbiologist | November 30, 2009File this under "Democrats are the stupidest political party in recorded history." A recent poll asked, "In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?" The answer:
This isn't just the 'liberal' base: the entire party has been demobilized. Only 56 percent of Democrats are likely to vote, versus 81 percent of Republicans. And now, some Democrats are talking about cutting Social Security benefits, even though there is no crisis. That's not going to rally the Democratic rank-and-file.
Democrats, and Democratic-…
mikethemadbiologist | July 9, 2009Apparently so. And that should give everyone pause, since SSN has become the de facto national identification system. From PNAS:
We demonstrate that it is possible to predict, entirely from public data, narrow ranges of values wherein individual SSNs are likely to fall. Unless mitigating strategies are implemented, the predictability of SSNs exposes them to risks of identify theft on mass scales.
Any third party with internet access and some statistical knowledge can exploit such predictability in 2 steps: first, by analyzing publicly available records in the SSA Death Master File (DMF) to…
mikethemadbiologist | April 8, 2009I haven't ranted about the non-existent Social Security crisis for a while. Thankfully, Bob Somerby does some very good myth-busting of the 'worthlessness' of Social Security IOUs--that is, the Social Security Trust Fund:
It's true, of course, that the SS surpluses of the past twenty years (the so-called trust fund) have been borrowed and spent. (That's the system Congress put in place when it raised payroll taxes in the 1980s.) But then, the federal government borrows lots of money, from lots of sources, and all of that money has been spent! Duh. The government doesn't borrow money so…
mikethemadbiologist | August 15, 2008From FDR's grandson, here's a video that puts Social Security--and its current politics--in proper context:
"A disgrace"? Hopefully, Democrats will run that in every ad.
mikethemadbiologist | April 4, 2008While discussing the recent Social Security Trust Fund report, I noted that there was a slight increase in the number of disability claims. It turns out that one reason for the increase is that sleazy insurance companies are trying to reduce the benefits they have to pay out by shifting the burden to Social Security:
The Social Security system is choking on paperwork and spending millions of dollars a year screening dubious applications for disability benefits, according to lawsuits filed by whistle-blowers.
Insurance companies are the source of the problem, the lawsuits say. The insurers…
mikethemadbiologist | March 26, 2008Well, the Social Security Trustees Report is out, and, as has been reported every year since 1993, Social Security is still destined to collapse over three decades from the date of the release of the report--a unit of time I like to refer to as the Samuelson Unit after columnist and fucking moron Robert Samuelson. I point this out because, if the 1993 predictions had been accurate, we should have only seventeen years (give or take) until the Trust Fund is dry.
Yep, the pessimistic estimates keep on keepin' on. Unfortunately, our idiot press corps is unable to discern the basic facts of…
mikethemadbiologist | February 16, 2008The NY Times asks about Peter Peterson, "Can the co-founder of the Blackstone Group who has scored riches from a controversial tax break emerge as a credible voice in favor of fiscal constraint in Washington?" Of course, he can. He just has to be clever about what he means by "fiscal constraint" (italics mine):
On Friday, Mr. Peterson will unveil the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and announce his plan to allocate his newfound billions to projects that will increase public awareness of fiscal imbalances, Social Security deficits and nuclear proliferation.
To assuage his guilt--let's call him…
mikethemadbiologist | November 21, 2007I think there's a related disorder to Compulsive Centrist Disorder: Magnanimous Pundit Syndrome. It seems to have hit Kevin Drum pretty hard (italics mine):
I'm on record (several hundred times, probably) saying that Social Security is basically fine and that the best thing we can do is just leave it alone and then revisit it in a decade or so. At the same time, I don't think any of us would (or should) have any serious problem with, say, a 1983-style commission that beavered away for a year and then recommended a basket of modest tax increases and benefit reductions to keep Social Security…
mikethemadbiologist | November 15, 2007When I discovered that Shakes, filling in over at Crooks and Liars, had linked to my post about Senator Obama and Social Security, I thought might get hordes of angry Obamaites*. Instead, what some of the comments repeated two common mistakes about Social Security (although thankfully other readers slapped them down).
The first fallacy is that Social Security is in crisis. It's not. Let's try this way of explaining it, since the other ways don't seem to have worked (an aside: why do I even put hyperlinks in my posts? The conservatives either don't bother to read them, or don't know how…
mikethemadbiologist | November 12, 2007One of the most successful anti-poverty programs ever created in the U.S. is the Social Security program. Despite that, conservatives and Republicans, primarily for ideological reasons, have attempted to dismantle the program--if not in one fell swoop, then incrementally.
One of the tactics that conservatives have used is to try to convince people that Social Security "won't be there" when they retire. To do this, they gin up the notion that Social Security is in crisis, even though that is simply not true. The reason for this is that, as mandated by law, the Social Security Trustees are…
mikethemadbiologist | November 7, 2007Before I get to an excellent NY Times article by David Leonhardt about taxes, I want to say why taxes shouldmust matter to scientists.
Even so often, I get a link or a comment which decries my posts about politics*. But the lay of the political landscape is vital for scientists--and not just for the 'science' issues, such as global warming. Quite simply, taxes are what fund much of U.S. science, especially 'basic' research, which is not only the cornerstone of applied research, but also comprises a lot of the cool stuff we discuss at ScienceBlogs. In a low-tax environment (when combined…