Orwell and Social Security - Paul Krugman

[LongTomH]

Prof.Paul Krugman's latest blog post at the NY Times is an attack on the continuing campaign to privatize social security:

I have to say, after Bush’s Social Security scheme collapsed five years ago, I never thought I’d be back over the same old ground so soon.

But Social Security is actually a key testing ground — it’s the place where you really see what people are after, and also get a sense of whether they’re at all honest about what they’re trying to do.

So: Pat Toomey supports replacing much of Social Security with a system of private accounts, but denies that this is privatization — and denounces those who use the term:

I’ve never said I favor privatizing Social Security. It’s a very misleading — it’s an intentionally misleading term. And it is used by those who try to use it as a pejorative to scare people

Prof. Krugman points out that the Cato Institute had something called: "The Project on Social Security Privatization back in the 90s;" but, when they found out just how negatively people reacted, they dropped the term and purged all references to it on their website. But, as Krugman points out, they've just changed the labels.

[chill_wind]

1. K & R. n/t

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R

Today's Republican Motto: "Extremism in the defense of re-election is no vice."

[Radical Activist]

3. When Obama strongly denounced privatization of social security

a number of pundits criticized him by claiming no one was talking about privatizing it. Now we know that isn't true. The specter of privatization is being raised by Krugman, who didn't comment on Obama's recent remarks.

Of course, this Krugman post provides great material for people who want to claim that what Obama *really* meant is that he's going to privatize social security and turn grandma over to a death panel. Let the fantasy continue.

[ipaint]

5. Protecting social security by setting up a commission, which by the way our reps in congress

had voted down, staffing it with anti social security right wing hacks and telling these supply side nuts that social security is on the table, is not protecting social security. I don't care how many pretty speeches he gives and how many sincere promises he makes, these are not the actions of an advocate or a protector working in the people's best interest. Not by a long shot.

Sound more like taking a page from bush's playbook i.e. "clean skies initiative" a cover to loosen regulations on polluters. Up is down, black is white.

Not to mention the huge conflict of interested of those on the cat food commission-


"Now that the President has opened this Pandora’s Box, it is hard for him credibly to make the case, as he attempted to do in last Saturday’s weekly radio address, that “some Republican leaders in Congress want to privatize Social Security.” In fact, it is an idea enthusiastically embraced by a number of Wall Street Democrats who are funded with huge campaign contributions from Wall Street itself. (Candidate Obama received more money from Wall Street in 2008 than Hillary Clinton.) These contributors would be the Rubinites who for decades have played a huge role in allowing for greater financial leverage ratios, riskier banking practices, greater opacity, less oversight and regulation, consolidation of power in ‘too big to fail’ financial institutions that operated across the financial services spectrum (combining commercial banking, investment banking and insurance) and greater risk. Privatization of Social Security represents the last of the low hanging fruits for Wall Street. Who better to provide this to our captains of the financial services industry than their major political benefactors in the Democratic Party?

The issue of privatization is germane when one considers the members of the Commission approved by the President. There are questions of possible conflicts of interest. As James Galbraith has noted, the Commission has accepted support from Peter G. Peterson, a man who has been one of the leading campaigners to cut Social Security and Medicare. It is co-chaired by Erskine Bowles, a current Director at North Carolina Life Insurance Co (annuity products are a competitor to Social Security and would almost certainly be beneficiaries of the partial privatization). Mr. Bowles’ wife, Crandall Close Bowles, is on the Board of JP Morgan, and she is also on the “Business Council,” a 27 member group whose members include Dick Fuld, Jeff Immelt, Jamie Dimon and a plethora of other Wall Streeters."

http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/08/16/which-party-poses-the-real-risk-to-social-securitys-future-17610/


It's unforgivable to put social security in this kind of danger by choice. No amount of spin will change that fact.

[nashville_brook]

6. +1

[Radical Activist]

7. Since you've posted this before

why don't you clarify what this line means.

"the Commission has accepted support from Peter G. Peterson"

What does that mean exactly? Is he funding it? Did he give them a pat on the back?

The link referencing that claim doesn't work so I couldn't find what kind of sinister "support" the blog is referring to.

You don't care about speeches. I don't care about wild speculation. To each his own.

[ipaint]

8. You wish it was wild speculation.

Q. Why is the Commission apparently working so closely with billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who served in the Nixon administration and who has a clear ideological agenda?

Q. Mr. Peterson has been on a decades-long crusade against Social Security. The day after the first meeting of the commission, which focused heavily on the need to cut Social Security, the co-chairs and two other members of the commission participated in a Peterson event that reinforced the same message. A Peterson-funded foundation is supplying commission staff. And Peterson’s foundation is funding America Speaks to develop a series of high-profile town halls across the country to host “a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.”

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=456

"In June, according to the Washington Post, Obama’s deficit commission will be participating in a 20-city electronic town hall meeting, put together by an organization called America Speaks. It is financed by Peterson, along with the MacArthur Foundation and Kellogg Foundation. This is a truly unusual event because it marks the first time a presidential commission’s activities are financed by a private group that has long been lobbying the government on the very subjects the commission is supposed to “study.”

http://unsilentgeneration.com/2010/04/27/petersons-anti-entitlement-juggernaut/

http://www.pgpf.org/newsroom/press/Top-Leaders-to-Meet-in-Washington/


Peterson is filth. His motives are clear as are the commissions.

No one in their right mind protects a worker funded retirement account by creating a commission staffed by neo-lib assholes who want to destroy it. There is no amount of spin on earth to cover up this heist.

[Radical Activist]

9. I wish?

Because I wish so bad that SS will be cut? No, I don't wish for social security to be cut just so I can prove a point on an internet message board. :eyes:

Thanks for providing that info. It's nice to see something concrete rather than wild speculation based on who was put on the commission. Personally, I don't think it's very cool to call three of the most liberal Democrats in Congress and a former SEIU President "neo-lib assholes who want to destroy it." But hey, who cares about accuracy when hyperbole is so much fun?
Keep your fingers crossed about being proven right when the commission makes a recommendation!

[ipaint]

13. LOL

There is your proof and you turn it into a story about me personally. This info is all easily available for anyone to find. If you knew what you where talking about you'd know about peterson already.

Being misinformed and posting over and over discrediting respected journalists and people in organizations who are trying to save social security from being butchered by informing people of the incestuous relationships between neo lib right wingers and the commission is nothing to be proud of.

Repeatedly telling folks to keep their powder dry while a massive heist of what's left of the peoples wealth is in the works enables the thieves.

[ipaint]

14. The neo lib asshole obama appointed-

"Alan Simpson believes that Social Security is "like a milk cow with 310 million tits," according to an email he sent to the executive director of National Older Women's League Tuesday morning. Simpson co-chairs the deficit commission, which is considering various proposals to cut Social Security benefits."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/alan_simpson_social_security_n_693277.html


More neo lib right wing scum-

Bruce "end welfare as we know it" Reed

"The commission's initial staffing decisions only add to progressive concerns. Reed, the executive director, hails from the Democratic Leadership Council, true paragons of political triangulation. Reed brought DLC research associate Conor McKay on board as well.

Pleading poverty on account of the commission's $500,000 budget (a good chunk of which will go to the executive director's $150,000 a year salary, and office expenses) Reed said he is reaching out to other government agencies and nonprofit groups to lend him "detailees" for key staff posts.

So far, Reed has brought on Meagan Mann, from deficit-hawk Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag's staff, and Marc Goldwein, the Social Security expert at the deficit-hawk Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/05/obamas-fiscal-commission_n_565121.html


An example of obama's appointee erskine bowles's brilliance-

"When the co-chairman of President Obama's deficit commission gets his deficit numbers off by 100 percent, you would think this would be worth a little media attention. But apparently this is not the case.

Therefore when Erskine Bowles warned the National Governors' Association that the country would be spending $2 trillion a year in interest on the debt in 2020, virtually no reporters thought it was worth mentioning that he had exaggerated the interest burden by a factor of more than 2 the Congressional Budget Office's "alternative scenario"

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/13/bowling_alone_erskine_bowles_goes_off_the_deep_end/


The whole sick lot of them just fills me with confidence that they will protect social security for millions of working americans.
:sarcasm:


All a result of Obama's decision to put social security on the table after congress said no.

[NorthCarolina]

10. "Privatization" is the set-up, cuts are the goal. eom

[Radical Activist]

11. So Krugman and the others are setting up a straw-man?

I don't know. My guess is that they lift the income cap so wealthy people pay more into the system.

[NorthCarolina]

12. Given the makeup of the Debt Commission do you really think

lifting the income cap so wealthy people pay more is the goal? Not me. Privatization is the straw-man. Fighting "Privatization" will require "concessions". Those concessions will be cutting benefits and raising the retirement age. The issue of raising the retirement age has already been hinted at several times, and will be sold as the "less painful" alternative to privatization.

House Maj. Whip James Clyburn's official website says raising the age can keep Social Security solvent. "With minor changes to the program such as raising the salary cap and raising the retirement age by one month every year, the program could become solvent for the next 75 years," Clyburn's website says.

House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer told an audience at an event for Third Way, the centrist think tank, "we could and should consider a higher retirement age.", and ""We should consider a higher retirement age or one pegged to lifespan," Hoyer said.

It seems to be an obvious set-up to me. Almost comically obvious really. Hopefully I am wrong....in fact being wrong on this would make me really really happy...but I really don't think I am.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. See "Schools; Charter".

>>>>> Pat Toomey supports replacing much of Social Security with a system of private accounts, but denies that this is privatization — and denounces those who use the term:
I’ve never said I favor privatizing Social Security. It’s a very misleading — it’s an intentionally misleading term. And it is used by those who try to use it as a pejorative to scare people.>>>>>>

[Jefferson23]

15. K&R