why do you consider him "brainless"?

He got in on his father's coatstrings. Not because he had the political savvy required to be President.

certainly he had the advantage of connections and name recognition, but I disagree entirely he doesn't have political savvy. He's twice the politician his father was.

Maybe twice the politician domestically. On the other hand, George H.W. was more than twice the statesman and diplomat. Despite some blunders at the end, his war in Iraq was nearly universally regarded as justified and was very widely supported. The son has not come even close to that.

certainly he had the advantage of connections and name recognition, but I disagree entirely he doesn't have political savvy. He's twice the politician his father was.

Or he's the sock puppet of twice the politician.

he would have had to allow himself to be puppeted then, which would be a very successful political decision

Well, if no democrat will vote for the plan we can damned well vote 5 of them out in 2002, and I bet a few of them are aware of this.

Have you seen the numbers on popular approval for Bush's Social Security proposal? It has overwhelming popular support in every group polled. A poll on the subject from 2002 showed up to 90% approval for privatization of Social Security and showed over 50% approval even among seniors, and over 60% approval among those who identified themselves as Liberals or Democrats. A poll taken after last night's speech shows even higher favorable numbers, particlarly among minorities.

If Harry Reid wants to hold the line against Bush's plan then he can kiss the political viability of the Democratic party goodbye. Their own people want Social Security privatization and they're going to lose those moderate Democrats once and for all and further marginalize the party if they don't work with Bush on this.

Dave

From the AARP:

"When you simply ask, 'Do you favor giving people the choice to invest some of their Social Security taxes in private accounts?' the results are usually 65 to 55 percent in favor," says Lawrence R. Jacobs, a professor at the University of Minnesota who tracks and studies public opinion and the politics of Social Security.

"But," he says, "as soon as you introduce any kind of information regarding the costs and risk of the transition to private accounts, you see those numbers flip to opposition."

The AARP poll of 1,500 adults age 30 and older finds a majority of Americans--66 percent--favor keeping Social Security "as close to the present system as possible." That figure rises to 79 percent among people 60 and older. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center in Washington echoed that finding: 54 percent of respondents support the idea of private accounts. But only 29 percent think it's more important to allow workers to have private accounts than it is to preserve Social Security's guaranteed benefit.

"The public is not coming at Social Security as an infant," Jacobs says. "Americans are familiar with it, and they are nervous about changing it. Polling over the last decade has shown they are leery of a shift to private accounts."

--
I'd say Harry Reid knows what he's doin.

Wow, the AARP. Now there's an organization with no agenda on this issue.

I'm sure that when they asked something equivalent to 'do you want to lose your benefits in social security reform' they got a pretty negative answer.

I like it a lot better when I can see the actual questions and the answers they elicited.

Dave

Social Security question of the day: Has anybody said where $2 trillion (that's with a t, as in million million, or $2,000,000,000,000) or more in "transition costs" is going to come from? I haven't heard the President make a serious effort to answer that question.

Here is another social security question... Stock market advocates like to talk about the yields over the last 50 or 60 or 70 years. But they seldom cover the period of the Great Depression in their touting of stocks. If you look back over history (into the last century and the century before that) you will see that stock markets periodically bubble and burst. To think that it won't happen again in the next 30 years is silly, we are WAY overdue. You might say somehow the forces of greed and speculation have changed over the last 50 years or so. Tell it to the Japanese and their property investments.

Yes, Dems could lose their seats next year. So can Reps. Just because the Reps are in majority does not mean that they will stay that way the next go round. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are making legitimate concerns. "Well Supported" Iraq? I support the troops, but not the decison to go to war. Which was a big reason why Kerry got my vote. Others felt the same way. I guarantee you red states still had blue voters who stood by their party.

Not to mention that stock yields are also dependent on economic growth, and the Social Security Administration's own projections of economic growth assume that growth will be slower in the future as a higher percentage of the population is retired. Slower economic growth=lower stock yields.

If you change the assumptions about economic growth to support necessary strong stock yields in the future, then Social Security's future solvency problems disappear.

Yet another reason to wonder about Bush's privatization scheme.

If you take the depression as part of a 30 year period you'll see that although stocks were way down for several years during the depression, by the end of that 30 year period stocks still produced an overall return far higher than the 2% return people get on the money they pay into social security.

Also, one thing which President Bush didn't mention and which Democrats certainly aren't going to is that for every year we wait to do something to make sure social security is properly funded the price to make those fixes goes up by $600 billion. So while Bush wants to spend $2 trillion right now. if we wait until it's a real crisis in about 10 years that price tag will be closer to $8 trillion.

Dave

And now we come back to the question of what assumptions regarding future economic growth privatizers are making to support their claims that this will work out advantageously for participants. I have yet to see a privatization supporter answer this question.

Secondly, a hypothetical but definitely possible case: Suppose you have a reasonably cautious investor who puts his money into the bond fund (rumored to be among the options) for 10 years - 1919-1929. He then decides that he is screwing himself by not being in stocks, so puts all his money in the stock fund in September of 1929 - and then gets hammered. He then decides stocks aren't for him, and in 1930 puts all his money back into bonds. How do you propose to protect this guy? And I would submit to you that this case will not be uncommon. As my financial advisor likes to point out, many many people lose money in the stock market because they buy high (cause the market is going like gang-busters) and sell low (because they just got flattened in a correction).

My dad has always told me that the amrket does not count, what does is what you originally paid for the stock. After all, you don't lose your investment unless you sell.

Yes. IF (and only if) you don't sell them. In the hypothetical case above, the investor buys before the 1929 peak and sells right after the crash. That results in a very real loss for the individual concerned. Yes, it is stupid to sell stocks right after a crash, but lots of small investors do it anyway - probably more small investors burn themselves this way than promoters of Wall Street would like to admit.

Hmmm... I wonder how all these arguments played out against the federal-employee fund investment proposals? [rhetorical]

Since I have family who retired recently on the generous "pension" provided by these investments from state-government positions, I'd have to recuse myself.

Social Security Privatization Scheme question:

These are "voluntary personal accounts" as I understand it. Does that mean that if I decide not to participate I will continue to contribute to conventional social security at the current rate and will see the same benefits when I retire that the system is currently set up to provide?