Re: Big purple digit

David Friedman <ddfr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > The population getting smaller as generations with only 2 or 3 kids
> > coming up is an issue, but not such a huge one as the politicians make
> > it out to be.
>
> It wouldn't be an issue at all if Social Security had been set up on an 
> actuarially sound basis, with participants, on average, getting out a 
> sum with the same present value as what they put in. It's only because 
> it was done as a pyramid scheme that the failure of the population to 
> grow fast enough is a problem.

Except that precise benefit levels are not a contract: it's neither a
pyramid scheme, nor a savings/investment scheme.  Ignoring the bonds which
make up the trust fund, it's a simple redistribution of income from
present
workers to retirees, disabled people and children who've lost one or more
parents.

-- 
Nate Edel                               http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
 preferred email  | 
 is "nate" at the | "I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity.
 posting domain   |  I'm for it." - prologue to "Smut" by Tom Lehrer