Harvard economist Martin Feldstein (no relation I assume to MAD Magazine editor Al Feldstein) rode to influence in the Reagan administration on the coattails of the loony Milton Friedman’s unreal views about people becoming fashionable. Friedman’s the guy who, in a bit of silly mental jerking off, said a dollar is worth as much — has as much “marginal utility” — to a rich man as to a poor man.
You can blame Martin Feldstein for George Bush’s nonsensical insistence that Social Security needed a major overhaul. The idea was nonsensical because the arithmetic didn’t support the claim the system will inevitably collapse, and because the alternative was to go private.
People have 401K plans, so they’re already invested in the market for their retirement! It doesn’t make sense for people to put ALL of their retirement money into the stock market. Social Security is supposed to be a safety net. It works. Yes, it undoubtedly will need adjustments, but changing its very charter, and the way it operates, is simply wrong, wrong, wrong.
Most people can’t be professional money managers, and why should they be? It’s like saying everybody should do their own car repairs. Duh! NO! And even if somebody is very good at managing investments, or they hire somebody who is actually honest, there are times — like right now — when the market moves down and they lose money. And people much further down the economic ladder, who don’t have retirement plans, need a sure thing. Something to keep the wolf away from the door. That’s what Social Security is all about, Charlie Brown.
Privatizing Social Security was a very stupid idea from Martin Feldstein, a man who is supposed to be intelligent, but he sure doesn’t seem to think very clearly. Tuesday he proved that on the NPR program “On Point” with Tom Ashbrook, that originates at WBUR in Boston.
Did Feldstein say the tax cuts for the ultra-rich in Bush’s first term were a bad idea? No. Did he say the occupation in Iraq is draining America dry? No. Did he say the ideas of Milton Friedman needed to be retired? No. He said we’re in a recession and blamed the problems on Alan Greenspan’s final years as Federal Reserve chairman, and he said the recent incentive checks didn’t work because everybody salted them away in the bank. Talk about being out of touch. Fortunately, a caller named Judy was incensed by Feldstein’s informed yet idiotic academic blather and she got on the air to tell him a thing or two.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/OnPointFeldstein.mp3]Way to go, Judy.
Hi! You’re right Cactus Lizzie, and I apologize to Mexican readers! They don’t need Republicans there on top of other problems. Mexico has given us great food, music, art, literature, and other things-but unfortunately is known for things like you listed, plus natural disasters. I remember Placido Domingo helping raise funding for survivors of the Mexico City earthquake. His career started with Mexican theater-zarzuela. As for our illustrious leader, I just read a San Francisco sewage plant has it on the November ballot to change its name to George W. Bush Sewage Plant in recognition of the mess he made in 2 terms including the Iraq war. All I know is, if anyone deserves this, it’s someone as full of s__t as Dubya! 🙂
Hey!!! Now, Joan, be nice!!! Our Mexican neighbors have had their OWN problems with inefficiency and corruption in the law enforcement and political systems. Let’s not make it worse for them down there, by sending the Mexican poor anybody else! Everyone knows that Latin America has historically been plagued with the greed of the wealthy ruling class, as well as kick-backs and bribery! : (
But to address the comments made here… Sure, Wall Street would have LOVED the infusion of cash into the stock market. Then they could take all us amateurs for another pump and dump ride, like they did with the technology bubble at the turn of the century. By the time we dummies were thinking that tech was a place to make some profit on our investments, the professionals were all getting nervous and standing on the edge of cashing out, upon learning any bad news.
Remember when the pin burst the dot-com bubble? The news was that all those pairs of eyes looking at internet web pages were not buying the advertisements on them, like Wall Street was hoping for. That was the first domino to fall, which didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, just in and of itself. But then all those financial analysts insisting that “this time it’s different” regarding lofty price-to-earnings ratios of stocks, all cashed out. That left the rest of us, who believed their prognostications, standing there with an empty money bag.
And by the way, Social Security was not popular with the robber baron rich class in America when it was first introduced. They were the ones who, of course, had no need of it, in order to secure their retirement years. They knew their money would outlive them by generations to come.
OOPS! 2000 election…back when all this mess began…when we started our travels in that proverbial handbasket!
“South America, take it away!” I have that cartoon. It’s “Rebel Rabbit,” from 1949. I’ll try to post it.
Remember the cartoon where Bugs Bunny was sawing the state of Florida off the country? (He must’ve prophesized the 2002 election!) I’d like to take the Democrats (and homeless cats) out of the state of Texas, house them nicely elsewhere- and put Bush, Cheyney, Petraeus, McCain, Phil Gramm, this fool Martin Feldstein, the entire Republican party and all its followers in it, saw it off and make it a Gulf island or a part of Mexico. I am so tired of the asinine ideas and politics out of the mouths of Republicans. They brought the division of the country to a head with their conservative media hatred of Democrats and everyone who disagrees with them, plus their literal kidnapping of God, the American flag and those damn lapel pins! So if they want division-Bring it on!…..THAT’s ALL FOLKS! 🙂
You go, Judy! The second the news came out about the rebates, Tom said that if people were smart, they’d use them to pay down their credit card debts.
Ah, Milton Friedman! I knew him from MIT. He had only been there very briefly while collaborating on a paper with my boss, Ernst Berndt, and a couple of other econometric professors. It was his office that Ernie was moving into when Milt was leaving MIT to start the Center for Economic Research in Cambridge back in 1983.My colleague Linda (another secretary) left to become his personal secretary shortly before I moved to PA. I helped him pack his books! and inherited his spider plants, one of which made it all the way to THIS house, but finally died a few years back.