Don't Gamble with our Social Security

[maryf]

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/60490


Don’t Gamble with Our Social Security
By: Kay Tillow Saturday July 17, 2010 7:41 pm


Andy Stern, a key member of the president’s deficit commission, proposes to invest a part of our Social Security funds in the stock market. Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank, has expressed approval for Stern’s proposal. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea,” said Baker. “If he’s talking about getting money out of the trust fund for that purpose, I could live with it. You’d get a higher return now that stocks are falling.”

Alarmed at Baker’s statement, I wrote to him: “Did you really assert (as Ryan Grim reported in the June 30th Huff Post) that it would be okay to invest part of our Social Security funds in Wall Street? Please say it isn’t so.

I regularly distribute updates on health care and the movement for single payer to 20,000 unionists across the country, and I have shared with them some of your analyses on the economic crisis. Your work has been helpful to union members struggling to understand the complex economic forces that are battering us. We have to find our way through the barrage of misinformation that comes at us from the journalists who are bought and paid for. Where are we to go for economic analysis, if you now propose turning over a portion of Social Security to a gamble on Wall Street? The need to stand on principle to protect our precious safety net programs far outweighs the gaining of a few bucks in the short run. Don’t you agree?”

I heard from Dr. Baker who has confirmed his support for investing a part of the Social Security Trust fund in the stock market as a way to get higher returns.

Social Security and Medicare are under a many-sided attack. I believe that if the door is opened to invest Social Security, even a small part, in the stock market, that the program will suffer irreparable damage. <snip>

much more at link above

[Starry Messenger]

1. k & r

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Are we ready to march in the streets YET??? Anyone??

AARP, are you aware? On to this?? Organizing???

[maryf]

5. Don't count on AARP, but I'm in...

:fistbump:

[MisterP]

6. furthermore, it's disloyal (to the party, to the GOP's victims) to denounce the proponents of a

policy so obscene we would've screamed bloody murder if Newt or * proposed them

if we scream and shout--and then reelect the same people who signed our grandparents' death warrants--we're completely toothless and our every complaint will be ignored

the loyalists will point out good things and pretend-good things the Dems have done--but you didn't hear them lauding Bush for the No-Call List or AHNULD for his cannabis habit. when faced with this, they'll then switch tracks, saying they support "the best viable candidate" (like they ever supported Halter, Donna Edwards, or Toomey during the primaries)--ignoring the fact that this produces relatively rather than an objectively (i.e., actually) "good" politicians. this system is presented as the only possible one.

[maryf]

8. This system needs fixing,

oh I mean replacing ... btw when you said "the best viable candidate", did you mean to say the best vetted candidate??

Thanks for your comment, hope we all grow some sharp teeth soon...eat or be eaten they say...

[HughMoran]

3. Not this shit again

FDL posting crap from a non-binding commission. unrec and hide this repetitive BS.

[maryf]

4. Writing is on the wall watch out...

Kay Tillow is the Executive Director of the Nurses Professional Organization and Coordinator of Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare, my kind of labor person, I don't care where she posts...

[eridani]

10. It's "non-binding" only if Congress votes it down on an up or down vote

A lame duck Congress to boot.

[JHB]

12. Yes, this "shit" again...

...and we will continue to have it until it is crystal clear that SS is not just "off the table" but nowhere near it.

[Jim Lane]

13. It's not at all repetitive to report what Dean Baker is saying

As the OP noted, he's done a lot of great analysis of Social Security and other fiscal issues. I'm quite surprised to learn of this comment by him, and I'm glad to have the information posted here.

[maryf]

14. Thanks...

I'm sorry to say I'm not surprised by Baker's comments, but I know a lot of folks are disappointed...folks are being disappointed left and right by those they've placed too much faith in...

[maryf]

7. more on the deficit commission...

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/12/deficit_commission

[Bitwit1234]

9. I really don't think they will but

if republicans get control of congress social security and medicare will be the first thing they cut and privatize. And the dumb butt Democrats that would be left would go along to show they have bipartisanship.

[blindpig]

11. The barbarians are at the gate.....

Gilded Age, here we come!

[maryf]

15. again???

how many times before this stops...

the system is broken, we need to throw it away...

[Enthusiast]

16. This is another scam. nt

[maryf]

17. ???nt