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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (182)	11/9/2002 1:54:06 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 7936

It's unlikely this crowd in Washington is even slightly interested in accountability, if they can continue to hoodwink the media talking heads, and the public. I disagree. I think it highly likely we will see progress on saving SS over the next two years. I think Bush realized that given the Daschle obstruction in the Senate he could never have done any good with SS. Today, I believe he sees that the opportunity is there to deal with what is, arguably, the greatest threat to the country over the next 30-40 years, Social Security.

To: MSI who wrote (182)	11/9/2002 9:12:55 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

You're right about the ability to estimate (not calculate, but estimate) future social security liabilities. This is standard procedure for actuaries. IBM has to do it, GE has to do it, not because they want to but because the government requires them to. The government, though, exempts themselves from the same requirement they impose on others. There's one difference. While GE has limited flexibility in changing their obligation, since most of what they owe is contractually obligated, the government could, at least in principle, terminate Social Security tomorrow and nobody would have any right to sue since there's no contract. But that aside, the government could perfectly easily -- well, technically easily, it would take some work because of the number of people invovled and the complexity of payout formulas for disability, widows and orphans, different retirement ages, etc. -- estimate the current value of their obligations under the present standards of the law. They won't, of course, because the sum would be massive and would totally freak both legislators and taxpayers.