Archive for the ‘Social Insecurity’ Category

October 30th, 2011

Last week I polled my mostly-undergraduate policy design class at Berkeley as follows: A. Social Security is in very serious financial trouble and probably won’t be there for my parents B. Social Security is in financial  trouble and probably won’t be there for me C. Social Security is basically OK and just needs some minor [...]

October 30th, 2011

There’s a spike in small-business formation when people become eligible for Medicare and don’t have to fear losing health insurance if they leave their jobs.

September 12th, 2011

Perry’s op-ed on Social Security, boldly headed “I am going to be honest with the American people,” calls boldly for “a conversation” on Social Security without actually being bold or honest enough to contribute anything to that conversation but some predictable talking points.

August 24th, 2011

Senator Tom Coburn got into hot water with his odd town hall musings about President Obama’s intent “as an African-American male” “to create dependency because it worked so well for him.” In a delightful Freudian inversion, the Senator labeled President Obama’s political philosophy “goofy and wrong.” I believe Senator Coburn is a good person, but [...]

August 12th, 2011

With all the rhetoric of Social Security in crisis, I only wish my 401(k) kept its value as well.

December 27th, 2010

What’s with the American political phobia against facial hair?

September 16th, 2008

If George W. Bush’s/John McCain’s views on Social Security of a couple of years ago had been national policy, your retirement could have shared in this meltdown. What’s in your 401K/IRAs? McCain’s Social Security positions are historically quite labile, and currently incomprehensible. He recognizes that demographically the working/retired population ratio is shrinking, asserts that the [...]

September 18th, 2005

The discussion of rebuilding New Orleans, either where it is or in some better location, may be a special case of a problem that deserves more study. It happens occasionally that a largish region loses its economic raison d’�tre, something that can happen because of technological change, depletion of an extractive resource, or the rise [...]

August 2nd, 2005

Yes, let’s have them, but not as part of Social Security. Instead, let’s spend the tax subsidy on IRAs,401(k)s, and the like to fund individual retirement accounts for every worker.

May 1st, 2005

Yes, the poor lose less than the middle class. Is that supposed to be the good news?