The Carnaby Take on Social Security... er, Reform

This post wouldn't be Carnaby-rific without first linking to this great video short of the hopeful outcome of all further terrorist suicide bombings.

Ahem, now to the topic at hand. Social Security should be reformed. This is how it should be done, and a simplistic, but straight forward and true "why." Of course, there's the other why, which is the real correct one, that is, the one espoused by Objectivists, but the one I'm presenting is more palatable to the ordinary American.

Now then, as long as the American public insists on forced savings for retirement, then that's all it should be. The government should then force Americans to save for their own retirement and not rob Paul to pay Peter now, with a promise to rob Steve to pay Paul later. We all know this is how it works now, there's no Lock Box, no Trust Fund in terms of real dollars. All there really is, is a big bucket of IOU's from the government to itself. Yes, it's ridiculous.

Where was I? Oh yeah... individual Americans should have a choice of what to do with their forced saving, whether to be wimps and buy bonds, or have some guts and invest in mutual funds, or some combination of these. I think that the money shouldn't be able to go into individual stocks as that does entail too much risk for a certain portion of the population that would inevitably blow all their money on bad investments (remember, we're talking about a system that still involves government coercion, so as long as it's being done, it ought to be done, *spit* right, i.e. as well as possible from a utilitarian point of view. Did I just write that?).

Now quit getting me off track with your complaints. So, the forced savings should go exaclty into accounts for the individual that they were forced from. A VERY SMALL administration fee can go to the *spit* government to pay the inevitable paper pushers. This fee should be capped in advance and the goverment should be forced to make due. These details are not very important, but they are very important. I don't want to get bogged down by them, but the Magnum PI little voice inside my head is compelling me.

Here's the guts of the matter. We, as human beings, can't just cut off the idiots who rely on SS for their living. This being the case, what's the best way to proceed? In case you were worried, I'm going to spill the beans right now. The best way to proceed is summarized in the following list

1. Cut off anyone who doesn't *haaak* *spit*need SS, with a graduated scale from all need through some need, to no need. E.g. if you have retirement income in excess of $100,000 per year outside of social security, then we reasonably can surmise that you don't need it. If you have no income outside of SS, then you get all your original benefit. etc. I hate that we're talking in these terms, but that's what it's reduced to.


2. We've reduced the entitlements currently owing now, so we can proceed to our version of the privatization of SS. If you've already retired, then you get your SS based on the formula in part 1. If you haven't yet retired, then the old fashioned SS is phased out based on how many years you have to 65 or whatever. That is, if you're 60, then you are going to get, say 90% of your government garanteed SS income upon retirement at 65. If you're 55 then you're going to get 70%. If you're 45 then you're going to get 40%. and if you're 30 you get squat. This would have to be on a continuous, though non-linear scale to get rid of SS as we know it as soon as possible. Inevitably, there will be some unfairness, but too bad.
Blame your grandparent's grandparents. It's their fault for letting the SS nightmare get started in the first place.


3. As part 2. phases the old system *spit* out, the new system will be phased in. It will SEEM to those of us paying in that we are paying more than before, but the clincher is that we are actaully paying less. No lie! We would be paying more right now that we can't spend on entertainment, business ventures and new underwear, but we're actually paying less to the ponzi scheme by consequences of part 1., that is, reduced entitlements *spit*. The money that seems like more is actually our own money, that will come back to us at retirement -- Not money thrown into the fictional lock box or whatever they call it. It's a little more painful,in some manner, due to the decrease in disposable income, but the consequences are much better.

And there it is. There is an added benefit of this scheme to the current SS nonsense system, and that is that the money from forced savings no longer goes into a phony lock bucket to be replaced by a government IOU to itself, to be spent on other ridiculous schemes, fraud and waste, but it goes into the American Economy! It ceases being squandered by those who squander best. It no longer buys pork and sells government favors. It fuels our economy, which creates jobs, which makes life better, which creates WEALTH. And the resulting higher standard of living will actually make it easier, not harder (I guess that's what "easier" means, so nanner), to support the remaining unwashed SS dependents.

With all due respect for the work of Don Luskin, I never met Paul Krugman and I don't like him anyway. Krugman is a childish twerp and he's going off the deep end, just like I predicted (and I did, trust me).

There. Call it Carnaby's Plan to Kill SS. If that's not Carnaby-rific, I don't know what is.

Update: What are the odds that me writing this will make a difference? I'd say none. After all, I doubt Luskin will see it, and even if he does, I doubt he'll discuss it at his next appearance on Across the Bow or whatever. I doubt President Bush will see it either. (Do you think he uses Google? Does he google "president bush"?) If they did see it, would they care? Probably not. And then there're all the Dems who might see it. I'm sure that if Teddy Kennedy had a gander that he'd be swayed to reform SS as I've outlined above. Hah hah, it's hopeless, but still I try. We all try. Some have more influence than others, I have very little.