Social Security: Fuzzy Math

Paul Krugman points out privatization doublespeak:

[Social Security privatizers] can rescue their happy vision for stock returns by claiming that the Social Security actuaries are vastly underestimating future economic growth. But in that case, we don't need to worry about Social Security's future: if the economy grows fast enough to generate a rate of return that makes privatization work, it will also yield a bonanza of payroll tax revenue that will keep the current system sound for generations to come.

The rest of the article, as Krugman SS articles always do, skillfully break down macroeconomics into bits understandable to English majors.

But hey, maybe it won't even matter. Harry Reid, in his Gandalf-versus-the-Balrog moment, swears he can kill any Bush privatization plan right now.

Lefty blogs love to make fun of Republicans for constantly renaming social security privatization into more friendly phrases. Kevin Drum sums up the whole linguistic lunacy in three paragraphs.