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  • From: "Trevor Peck" <trevor AT ISBNread.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Classic Harry Browne on Social Security
  • Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 18:23:29 -0500

I don't have time to read this list as much as I'd like right now, but I
have seen a lot of subject lines about Social Security. Most of
you probably won't agree with what you read here, but you'll have to admit
it's a viewpoint you're not hearing a lot of on the evening news!

- Trevor.

P.S. I wholeheartedly and unreservedly and absolutely (even redundantly)
endorse this idea!

*******************************
Final fix for Social Security

By Harry Browne
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23948

The president's Social Security Commission has
acknowledged what politicians have been denying for
decades - that Social Security has no true reserve fund
and that much higher taxes will be required to make
good on the promises made to you.

The politicians don't put your Social Security taxes
into a "lock box" for your retirement. They give part
of the money to current retirees and squander the rest
on their favorite boondoggles. Since they've set
nothing aside for your rainy day, they can pay you a
pension only by taxing your children and grandchildren
at higher and higher rates.

"Solving" the Social Security problem wouldn't be as
difficult as the politicians and pundits make it seem.
But to understand the solution, we must first deal with
a few clichés.

Investing for retirement
Cliché No. 1: "Some people can't invest properly for
their own retirement."

This is typical of politicians' justifying their
interference by citing a problem they caused
themselves. If they didn't tax interest payments, and
if their monetary policies didn't create inflation,
anyone could ensure a secure retirement simply by
putting 5 percent of his earnings in a bank savings
account. No speculation or investing expertise is
necessary.

Cliché No. 2: "Some people are too irresponsible to
plan ahead for their own retirement."

Of course, some people wouldn't provide for their own
retirement - just as some of them won't brush their
teeth. But it's wrong to hold the rest of us hostage -
to force us into a fraudulent Social Security scheme
(or force us to display our teeth for government
hygiene inspectors) - simply because some people won't
take responsibility for their own lives.

Cliché No. 3: "Social Security would be more solvent if
the politicians could increase the system's earnings by
investing the reserves in the stock market."

Social Security brings a new dimension to such concepts
as annuities, insurance and retirement. No long,
complicated contracts. No actuarial tables to pore
over. Social Security operates on a very simple
principle: The politicians take your money from you and
squander it. Allowing the politicians to boost Social
Security's earnings by investing its reserves in the
stock market would just give them more money to
squander - and they'd still be back soon enough to
increase your taxes again.

Cliché No. 4: "Gradually 'privatizing' Social Security
will wean people off the system."

The first time the stock market dives, the politicians
(both Democratic and Republican) will jump on that as
an excuse to take away from you any further control
over your own retirement.

The problem and solution
Social Security is inherently unsound because it's a
political program - run by politicians for political
purposes. It will never work. And no attempts to fix
it, reform it, or refinance it can make a silk purse
out of a politician's ear.

Only a purely libertarian solution can make things
right: Shut Social Security down - completely,
immediately and for good. End the Social Security tax
tomorrow morning and stop making Social Security
payments tomorrow evening. Anyone under 50 can have a
better retirement putting 10 percent of his income in
the bank instead of 15 percent into Social Security.

And what happens to those who are currently dependent
on Social Security and those too close to retirement to
build a new nest egg?

Have the government make a one-time purchase of private
annuities - secure, non-political annuities that
guarantee the same income Social Security is paying now
to senior citizens.

How will the annuities be paid for?

Sell off assets the federal government shouldn't own
anyway - power companies, pipelines, unused military
bases, Western lands, oil rights, mineral rights, and
the hundreds of thousands of federal buildings that
serve no constitutional purpose.

This approach doesn't appeal to politicians, because it
takes tax money and power away from them. But the only
alternative to it is to resign yourself to having more
and more of your income taken from you and poured down
the drain.
-----

Harry Browne is the co-founder of the Downsize DC
Foundation, an analyst for the Free Market News
Network, and the host of the Harry Browne show, heard
on the Genesis Communications Network. You can read
more of his articles as well as his journal (which
resembles a blog) and learn how to get some of his
out-of-print books at www.HarryBrowne.org


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