BunkoSquad

Luckily there's a website called There Is No Crisis. I don't know who runs it and I don't know who updates it, so it automatically has more credibility than the Bush Administration. They, and Josh Marshall, dissect the plan a lot more carefully than I ever could. But there are some aspects of the S.S. fix that I find troubling.

George dreams of making America into an "ownership society". Which means, of course, that we all get pWn3d. See, by diverting a portion (not much) of your Social Security tax into your choice (not really your choice) of stocks and bonds, you will (might) have extra left over when you retire. I think. Keep in mind, of course, that five years ago, the people in charge of this would have probably thought that Enron was a safe stock to invest S.S. money in. So it's kind of like betting your nest egg on the blackjack table, except there aren't free drinks and you have to wait 30 years to see if the dealer can beat your 15. The fact that mutual fund managers and bankers and Wall Street and other Republican-leaning institutions get a big immediate windfall out of this is, I'm sure, just a happy coincidence.

But clearly we have to do something, or Social Security will be broke by 1988. Or something like that. So Bush is on the road, visiting friendly red states, standing arm-in-arm with Republican Senators who embrace his policy...or do they? Josh Marshall says "it is striking just how few Republican senators are willing to go on the record in support of the president's plan.".

Maybe the problem is with semantics. Bush and company were gung-ho about the "privatization" of S.S...until they learned that people didn't like that term. Enter "personal accounts", and Bush will snap at you if you call them what he called them a month ago.

But private, or personal, or potential, or pitiful - the fact remains that this is a complicated issue, and it's good we have a good communicator to distill it down to its essence:

THE PRESIDENT: Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Okay, better? I'll keep working on it.

Um....good idea.

So that's what I've learned. Some of your money can/should be diverted to handpicked (not by you) stocks and bonds, and you may get some of it back when you retire or die, but maybe not, and somehow if you're already rich you'll get more out of it than if you're not, and this has to happen now or your grandmother will be living in a cardboard box and eating cat food. And somehow this will fix the fact that black people don't live as long as white people, but I can't even get my brain in a state where I can figure that out.

I may stick to sports.