Fully automatic banana cream pies locked, loaded-Gene Lyons (young & SS)

[Gloria]

Fully automatic banana cream pies locked, loaded
Gene Lyons

Posted on Wednesday, February 2, 2005

I swear if I hear one more twentysomething in a power suit smugly assure a TV interviewer how much better they can handle their money than (snicker) Social Security, things could get ugly. Lately, I’ve been fantasizing about storming a Starbucks armed with fully automatic banana cream pies. "Eat this, yuppie scum!" Listening to these Young
Republicans is like hearing your 18-year-old tell you he doesn’t need a
seat belt because his reflexes are so superior he couldn’t possibly have an accident. I recently saw some puppy on CBS News boasting about his investment acumen. I couldn’t tell if he was another ringer like last month’s CBS poster child for Social Security "reform." They softpedaled the fact that Tad DeHaven, who opined that he’d never see a dime due to Social Security’s inevitable collapse, works for the National Taxpayers Union, a tycoon-funded Washington think tank devoted to the premise that government benefit checks ruin the character of the roughly 50 percent of old-timers with no other income. Mr. Confident Investor was 27. I couldn’t help noticing that he looked like the "before" half of a Hair Club for Men commercial.

Which has nothing to do with anything, except that I doubt premature
baldness was part of his life plan. But get rear-ended on the freeway
and end up paralyzed? Have a stroke or disabling heart attack? A child
with cerebral palsy? Work for a company that crashes, voiding his stock
options? Lose his 401 (k) in the next Enron or WorldCom fiasco? Not him, no way. He’s a winner. Social Security’s for losers.

Look, punk, it’s an insurance policy, not an IRA. But there’s a reason
we’re seeing all these boy-in-the-street interviews, and it’s not simply
polls showing that high percentages of young people believe that Social
Security is doomed. (Some also show that only 26 percent of Americans 18
to 34 read newspapers, which explains a lot.) Presenting opinions
instead of facts makes it easier to avoid mentioning that President
Bush’s campaign to "privatize" the most successful government program in
U.S. history is based entirely upon shameless falsehoods.

Whoops, I’ve used obsolete terminology. "Privatize" was last year’s
buzzword. Apparently because it worried voters that Republicans were
fixing to give Social Security a ride on a Wall Street roulette wheel,
the mandatory new phrase is "personal accounts." Bush recently scolded
Washington Post reporters for using the forbidden word, only to have
them show that he himself touted "privatization" just months ago.

MORE (lots of great facts)

• Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient
of the National Magazine Award.

http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=Editorial&storyid=106762

[TacticalPeek]

1. Kick.

:kick:

[Gloria]

2. I'm kicking because it really tries to wake up the young who feel

that investing is a snap and guaranteed big bucks. Trust me, it isn't!