Canary in a Coal Mine

May 12, 2005|Richard Nikoley||

The Canary is Dead

Now, let’s review.  A large organization counts on its younger
workers and continuing high revenues to fund the pensions and medical
care of its retired workers but finds that rising health care costs,
longer life-expectancy, and its own inability to control spending force
it to cut pension benefits and switch to personal accounts.

Kinda makes you go hmmm…doesn’t it?

Yea, no shit.

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5 Comments

  1. David Schantz on May 12, 2005 at 14:01

    What makes me go hmmm is the regulations that will be placed on the personal accounts.

    God Bless America, God Save The Republic



  2. Braidwood on May 13, 2005 at 12:17

    I'm here from Blog Explosion, just wanted to say hi! I like the colors in your banner.



  3. Joseph (OK Democrat) on May 13, 2005 at 12:59

    The personal accounts do nothing to create solvency in SS and are nothing more than an attempt to put SS money in Republican sponsors' clutches. I imagine if Bush gets his way, you will find that the ompanies hosting the accounts will be GOP sponsors and nothing but. I wouldn't be surprised at all.



  4. Todd on May 13, 2005 at 09:24

    Personal accounts aside (something I'm on board with), my retirement is my reposnsibility. Any funds I've already paid and will continue to pay into the existing flawed system simply ensure that my peers who did not plan as well are not struggling to get by, if not homeless, when we're all in the September of our years. I'm certain my children don't want to pay for my generation while they're still in their prime.



  5. Kyle Bennett on May 14, 2005 at 11:16

    Joseph,

    I can't speak for anyone else, but my hope is not SS solvency, it's SS elimination. If solvency is the lie that is used to undermine the liberals' positon, then so be it. If personal accounts are the camel's nose under the tent that undermines the whole system, then I'll temporarily accept personal accounts as a step toward full privitization. If account hosting companies are GOP cronies, then that just underlines the corruption inherent in the whole non-concept of "social" security, and it supports the argument for eliminating it completely.

    But like any moral appeasement, such arguments in the absence an argument about the fundamental moral imperative of full privitization will ultimately do more harm than good. The whole idea of social security is bankrupt, morally and fiscally, and was never and could not ever be solvent in any meaningful sense.

    Now, go ahead and make the "old people eating dog-food" argument. I'm ready for it.