I've Changed My Mind . . .

about Social Security.

I still think (naïvely -- this is not a sophisticated analysis but more of an emperor's-new-clothes observation) that it was a strange thing to get the whole country addicted to, with no turning back. That a whole nation is too big and diverse and impersonal to be an insurance pool. That there was a rosy romance to thinking collectively back then that we've since been disabused of. BUT:

United Airlines has used its bankruptcy proceeding to obtain a competitive advantage, first by deeply slashing employees' pay and benefits -- and now by defaulting on billions of dollars in pension obligations and dumping them on the federal government. Taxpayers will be footing those drastically reduced pension bills. United's CEO, Glenn F. Tilton, has been rewarded by taking home the biggest compensation package of any airline executive.

The last inviolable bargain between corporations and their employees has now been trashed. New York City's police horses get far better thanks for a lifetime of service. Watch this new bright idea for dumping anti-competitive ballast spread like wildfire through the corporate world. Now that pensions are expendable, Social Security is the last promise that protects a middle-class worker from an impoverished old age. Bush's proposed "progressive indexing," which restricts full benefits to poorest of the old, would create many millions more poor old people.

- amba

Comments

[Jason]

"That a whole nation is too big and diverse and impersonal to be an insurance pool. "

that's the whole point of an insurance pool - to be big, diverse and impersonal. BUt otherwise love the post. This progressive indexing thing will just shift a new burden of poor upwards to a middle class with little savings and tons of debt.