Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike

In article <7oith3pqj4rvvh9t1vt1gac5r0la5l58n9@xxxxxxx>,
Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


The worst that may -- or may not -- happen to Social Security is that
the trust fund will run out some years from now and benefits will have
to be increased less than they otherwise would be or payroll taxes
raised. That's a matter of changing demographics, of people living
longer. It's been fixed often enough in the past and it will be
similarly easy to fix in the future, through some combination of tax
increases or benefit increase reductions (benefits will still go up,
just not as fast as scheduled). Nothing to worry about.
But all of those demographics were supposed to taken into account
with the SS reform in the 80s. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said so, so it
much be true.


*None* of this has to do with the efficiency of the plans. Efficiency
refers to how much of the money that gets paid in to the plan gets
paid out. In both cases, that's higher than it is or could ever be in
private plans, which is to say that if you're given a choice between
spending $1 on Social Security or Medicare and $1 on a comparable
private plan, you'll get more bang for your buck from Social Security
or Medicare.

Since neither case do they have actually do anything but
take the money at gunpoint and then disburse, they can be really
efficient since they don't have to do anything. I defy you to find a
scenario where a non-governmental entity can take their money at
gunpoint and then disburse it without doing anything else. You are into
comparing apples and Alfa Romeos.

Also from an economic perspective, especially in pension area,
efficiency is not all that great either. Taxes are, by definition a
drain on economic efficiency. They only withdraw from the economy, and
this is especially true in the case of SS. Which is better economically,
a $1 that is taken out in taxes and then put into a bond that has to be
paid back with interest at some point in time, or a $1 that is invested
in building a building or starting a company or something productive.
I'll grant that taking money at gunpoint and then merely
disbursing can be done efficiently. No overhead at all in that scenario.

.

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