We have a chance to have an impact on the economy and political culture of the U.S. for the next hundred years, but only if people of understanding and good will act soon. I’m talking about Social Security. I strongly encourage anyone who hopes to avoid a disastrous generational conflict in the coming decades to take a few moments to download and print out the Community Leader’s Guide to Social Security Choice (a 31-page PDF booklet) and to go through it for ideas on how to get the political classes to do the right thing. (Additional resources can be found at www.socialsecurity.org.)
One thing that anyone and everyone can do is to write letters to the editor expressing support for personal accounts as an alternative to the grand Ponzi scheme that we’re all forced to contribute to now. It’s a pretty painless way to reach a huge audience.
My friend Ross Kaminsky had a letter in the December 18 New York Times, in response to one of Paul Krugman’s remarkably uninformed rants against personal accounts:
To the Editor:
Paul Krugman is once again appealing to the fears of current and future AARP members by arguing that older people will be left in poverty by private retirement accounts. I disagree.
Private accounts would not cause the government to abandon its promise to current and soon-to-be retirees. Leaving the current system in place is far more likely to lead to widespread retiree poverty than private accounts.
Comparing the United States with a former third-world country (Chile) is ridiculous. We already have a highly developed and competitive mutual fund industry with generally low fees even for nonindex funds. Increasing participation in markets would cause those fees to go lower.
Ross G. Kaminsky
Boulder, Colo., Dec. 17, 2004
For other good examples of letters to the editor, I recommend looking at the letters posted by my friend Don Boudreaux, chair of the department of economics at George Mason University. (Don is exceptionally good at the short letter — a quick surgical strike to make one point and then get out.)
The opponents of ownership and choice are mobilizing. The friends of freedom should do no less.
P.S. There is some discussion in a previous posting about the remarkable mischaracterization of the debate over Social Security by Paul Krugman and his soul mate in knee-jerk “if-Bush-is-for-it-I’m-agin’-it-ism,” Lew Rockwell.
The arguments that developing personal accounts will send those less adept at managing investments to Hell in a handbasket really haven’t experienced the effects of the Chilean system firsthand. I know many people (relatives mostly)who have picked their ADPs (the corporations that manage the accounts) and either managed them themselves or hired investment advisors to do it for them. The naysayers really don’t understand that average people are quite capable of taking care of themselves, even after they hit 65.