JustOneMinute: Krugman - Save Social Security Last
Man, take five minutes away from the blogsphere and miss a virtual riot. Riot of the day being whether or not social security needs saving (the above article links to at least half a dozen which comment Half of the people are saying no, half say yes, half comment negatively on those who say no, half comment negatively on those who say yes, leaving half to comment on how rancorous the entire set of people have become (this would be me).
My take? People love to argue and demonize the other side and that's basically what's happening here. As far as social security is concerned, there are a lot of people who simply cannot save enough to last them through retirement, and they need help. It's not a crisis; it's not even concerning. Privatize/do not privatize, I am not sure it will ever reach a crisis point. The distance of this thing reaching something maybe bad happening is 13 years away at the soonest, and, likely, no closer than 40 years. Between now and then there are about 65 million different things that can happen to the economy between now and then and all of them would likely change the potential outcome substantially. I do not think that means we should do nothing, but it is just not a crisis. I would like it if people started doing some basic math though... 