On Mon, 18 Jun 2001, Max Sawicky wrote:
> mbs: Calm down Mikey. The fund is not a fraud. It's a record of
> contributions in excess of cost, and this record has great political
> import, IMO.
But not in Moynihan's. He says in this column that it could all be abrogated with ease. I know you disagree, and of course I set much greater store by your judgment than Moynihan's. But the fact remains that if Moynihan thought in the early 80s what he's expressed here, then he was either a fool or a montebank. Everything he expresses here as a problem with the trust fund that needs to be fixed is something that resulted from his own tireless efforts. Another man might be more humble.
The thing that makes me think Moynihan might really be a fool is that for the second half of the eighties, he spent most of his air time fulminating against the fact that the Social Security surplus was being used to fund general expenses (a "betrayal of trust" he called it) -- as if there was anything else it could possibly be used for, in the absence of letting it buy assets, which, as far as I remember, he never brought up back then. Only now, when the idea has been connected with privatization.
I'm not against the fund buying assets in principle. In principle, we could have a Meidner plan. But of course in principle, workfare could have been a big public works program. It was just never likely. I think the this is yet another case where jumping on the bandwagon in the hopes of steering it our way only serves to oil the juggernaut's wheels, because the political context, which changes more more slowly than the policy context, ensures that only one of the options is a realistic possibility -- the bad one.
But I defer to your insider judgment. What makes you think the odds are so good as 50-50? The deflating of the bubble and the fear it strikes into men and women's souls?
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com