"Reforming" Social Security
From
Dean Baker at TPM Cafe:
Word has it that President Obama intends to appoint a task force the week after next which will be charged with "reforming" Social Security. According to inside gossip, the task force will be led entirely by economists who were not able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble, the collapse of which is giving the country its sharpest downturn since the Great Depression. ...
My guess is that this task force will not be very popular except at the Washington Post [which it might surprise you to know has become a right leaning newspaper] and on Wall Street.
Exactly who will be in this commission? I keep remembering that Greenspan of the Sphinx-like Utterance was on the Reagan Commission. Will Krugman be on this one?
ReplyDelete"According to inside gossip, the task force will be led entirely by economists who were not able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble"
ReplyDeleteThat's who he has working on the Stimulus
bill, so why stop now.
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Fix Our Social Security System
ReplyDeleteAn Unprecedented Opportunity to Fix Our Social Security System
Apparently we, the citizens of the USA are buying the mortgages of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae as well as funding the additional mortgage investment bank bail-outs that are inevitable, at what amounts to fire sale prices. This I understand possibly amounts to ½ of all residential mortgages. This could possibly be a previously unseen opportunity to create a solution to the liquidity of Social Security. The two economic hygienes that are commonly known to be a part of “The American Dream” are housing & providing for one’s retirement. Both needs could be met while providing the rescue to Wall Street that it seams to want.
A radical change in the way Social Security is funded is needed; I propose to create a profit center for Social Security different from the current system of taxation only.
1. Place the newly acquired mortgage assets into a new cabinet level Department of Social Security
2. The assets become the joint assets of the people of the United States
3. Separate the Social Security assets from the General Fund
4. Department of SS operates mortgage lenders
a. Limit of 1 concurrent mortgage per tax paying contributor assures private competition
b. Residential arm resells REOs to buyers in the program
c. Interest payments count as SS taxes paid
d. Profits of SS Mortgage Bank are rolled back into Social Security assets
5. Department of Social Security provides for the Retirement and disability of its share holders, the citizens.
James Syrett
(714) 231-6396
james_syrett@yahoo.com
"My guess is that this task force will not be very popular except at the Washington Post [which it might surprise you to know has become a right leaning newspaper]."
ReplyDeleteWhat are you smoking, The Post a right leaning newspaper.
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