They Invested Years in Private Accounts (Chili, Bush, Soc. Sec)

[rodeodance]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=2&u=/latimests/20050130/ts_latimes/theyinvestedyearsinprivateaccounts

They Invested Years in Private Accounts

42 minutes ago



By Janet Hook Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Back in 1997, proponents of overhauling Social Security (news - web sites) met with the man who would become their most powerful convert: Texas Gov. George W. Bush, whose presidential ambitions were beginning to gel.



The governor dined with Jose Piñera, architect of Chile's 1981 shift from government pensions to worker-owned retirement accounts, in a meeting that helped bring Bush a big step closer to embracing a similar plan for Social Security in his emerging presidential platform.

"I think he wanted to support the idea but needed to be convinced," said Edward H. Crane, president of the libertarian Cato Institute, who was at the dinner. "I really think Jose convinced him."

This week, President Bush (news - web sites)'s plan to allow younger workers to divert Social Security taxes into personal investment accounts will be a centerpiece of his State of the Union address and a barnstorming tour of the country. It is a tough sell to an uncertain public, but Bush has a secret weapon: A generation of free-market conservatives like Crane and Piñera has been laying the groundwork for this debate.

[tsuki]

1. Why do I always see Libertarian with Cato Institute? eoq

[KittyWampus]

2. Wasn't Chile's Move Disasterous. Hasn't Privitzation Failed Every Time

it's happened?

[salin]

3. My understanding is that it always requires MORE

government spending in the end.

[Mel]

8. Chile also had a

surplus when they privatized their SS, we don't.

I do not trust any persons that worked with Pinochet, and that would be one Jose Piñera from the Cato Institute he's just one more gangster that supports the BFEE.

I know none here at DU are surprised that the BFEE would embrace Jose Piñera.

[papau]

5. yes - Privitzation has failed every time it has been tried

:-)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=114&topic_id=13505
Fred J. Solowey
Labor Journalist, Member of National Writers Union (AUW Local 1981)

Social Insurance and Economic Security: Is Privatization the Answer?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=227&topic_id=61
Chile's disaster with Social Security private accounts - & US Media says nothing - but then who expected US Media to be a truth teller about anything where the truth might anger the GOP? Indeed the "he said/she said" format does not work when one side is a bunch of liars - a fact the GOP/rich do an excellent job of exploiting.

Multinational corporations have gained a stronghold over the Chilean economy through their control of financial companies that control workers' pension funds. These competing, private pension fund companies were set up in 1980 as a mandatory replacement for the government social security system. After the crash of 1981-1983, several of the most important pension fund companies were taken over by the government. When they were resold in the following years, foreign financial consortia purchased controlling shares in many.

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/RetirementSecurity/chileprivatization.pdf


http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/business/worldbusiness/27pension.html

SANTIAGO, Chile - Nearly 25 years ago, Chile embarked on a sweeping experiment that has since been emulated, in one way or another, in a score of other countries. Rather than finance pensions through a system to which workers, employers and the government all contributed, millions of people began to pay 10 percent of their salaries to private investment accounts that they controlled.

Under the Chilean program - which President Bush has cited as a model for his plans to overhaul Social Security - the promise was that such investments, by helping to spur economic growth and generating higher returns, would deliver monthly pension benefits larger than what the traditional system could offer.

But now that the first generation of workers to depend on the new system is beginning to retire, Chileans are finding that it is falling far short of what was originally advertised under the authoritarian government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

[0007]

4. Excellent article, I would hope the sleeping dimwits in this

country are paying attention.

adding from the article......

The steps they recommended were strikingly similar to the course Bush has taken: reassuring retirees that their benefits would not be cut and arguing that Social Security is financially unstable.

"Our reform strategy involves what one might crudely call guerrilla warfare against both the current Social Security system and the coalition that supports it," they wrote. "An economic education campaign … must be undertaken to demonstrate the weaknesses of the current system."

What's more, they argued, "building a constituency for Social Security reform requires mobilizing the various coalitions that stand to benefit from the change…. The business community and financial institutions, in particular, would be an obvious element in the constituency."

[VegasWolf]

13. No, the dimwits will buy this step by step. Machiavelli proved this

centuries ago and it has always proved true. The neo
conservatives playbook comes from Machiavelli's political
writings.

[brindis_desala]

6. The NYTimes debunked these crooks. the poor were

lucky is they ended up with $140 a month.
NYTimes: "Under the Chilean program - which President Bush has cited as a model for his plans to overhaul Social Security - the promise was that such investments, by helping to spur economic growth and generating higher returns, would deliver monthly pension benefits larger than what the traditional system could offer.

But now that the first generation of workers to depend on the new system is beginning to retire, Chileans are finding that it is falling far short of what was originally advertised under the authoritarian government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/business/worldbusiness/27pension.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1107094849-4XU/mHIOW6/gGkMXVauTqw

Here is an excellent analysis of the pitfalls.
http://www.econop.org/SS-SocialInsecurityChile.htm#Consequences

[Johnyawl]

11. Why would the financial institutions support privitazation of SS?

From the times article:

Even many middle-class workers who contributed regularly are finding that their private accounts - burdened with hidden fees that may have soaked up as much as a third of their original investment - are failing to deliver as much in benefits as they would have received if they had stayed in the old system.

The big financial institutions in this country gave the bush campaign 8 million dollars to help him win reelection. If they are given the chance to rob Social Security, it will have been the best investment they ever made.

[ima_sinnic]

7. 1997? did I miss something--or is he just now pushing it?

The whole plan to "reform" Social Security, to funnel it to the few, is another thing, like invading Iraq as part of a larger plan, that was laid out a long time ago. These parasites have spent years quietly laying the groundwork and spinning the spin for their coup. Hell only knows what new surprises are waiting--but they're not finished, not by a long shot. They got the whole world to plunder. It's not going to go away but only going to get a WHOLE LOT WORSE unless the people come together to resist it--better SOONER than LATER.

[AuntiBush]

12. People Have to Come Together!

You're so right. Reading overseas newspapers on-line, writers from all over the globe are more puzzled over "how" and "why" American's are taking all of this from what they see as the evilest man to ever run any country, much less our own.

What's wrong with us? Don't enough American's care? Or is it that the parasites have studied us for 20+ years and know - we're not smart enough to known, too busy to watch what's going on... that's what those bastard neocon's have done to us!

I don't know about anyone else out here, but I plan to write, call, email over and over again to fight privatization which will throw us to the open bond markets like no other before. If you think Bu*h and company (here and their cohorts around the globe) are rich and power mongrels now, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[Redstone]

9. Oh, horseshit.

Do any of you really that bushyboy is even remotely capable of remembering a conversation he had in 1997?

Of holding on to a thought for more than about twelve seconds?

Of being able to think, "Hmm. Privatize Social Security. I'll just file that one away for, oh, seven or eight years, and not forget to bring it up when I see the perfect moment to do so."

Spare me.

Redstone

[rodeodance]

10. I am sure Crane from Cato--kept great notes or even wrote

had the notes written before George had lunch.