Posted on 01/27/2005 8:40:16 AM PST by t_skoz
The best way to contain those costs is to go to a single-payer system, one in which the government insures everyone. That would probably cut the cost of health care by at least twenty-five percent.
Sure, Paul. Though you write for the NY Slimes, you apparently never actually visit NYC. Exhibit A: The NY subway. A fire on Sunday damaged a few wires, etc, and the government-run MTA says it will take FIVE YEARS to repair! How long will dialysiis patients have to wait for a new kidney in your goverment-funded utoptia, Krugster!
BTW, I have a friend who atteneded Stanford while the Krugster was a guest lecturer there. The Krugster was a total pervert to all the young chicks, and actually dumped his wife and kids in NJ to marry some hot young research assistant. He even tried to use his "celebrity" status to get his young honey a permanent professorship at Stanford after she graduated. That's why the Krugster's own website is so cryptic about his personal life. My friend said that the adminstration at Stanford couldn't wait to get rid of this guy, he was such a smug, arrogant, self-promoting scumbag. You won't hear much about that in the MSM!
At his tree-shaded home in Princeton, New Jersey, Krugman took a break from working on a new economics textbook to explain why the crisis is phony -- and what's wrong with Bush's plan "to convert Social Security into a giant 401(k)."
I recently watched a debate on PBS with Krugman vs. Dick Armey. Armey ripped Krugman a new one with the simple remark (paraphrased): "Paul, I bet you aren't relying on your SS for your retirement needs. In fact, I will bet that you have the majority of your retirement 401K' in the very stock market you deride as being too "risky" for the common man. Why can you invest in the stock market and regular people can't?" Krugman could only say "I have done very well." Then he dodged the question. "You've been sold a scare story. Right now Social Security has a large and growing trust fund -- a surplus that has been collected to pay for the surge in benefits we'll experience when the baby boomers start to retire. If you're twenty now, you'll be hitting retirement around 2052. That's the year the Congressional Budget Office says the trust fund will run out. In fact, many economists say it may never run out. If the economy continues to grow at an average rate, the trust fund could quite possibly last forever."
Armey pointed out to him that Johnson's Unified Budget put that "surplus" into the general fund. The only "surplus" is what rate the payroll tax will have to be increased to in the not so distant future. Of course it will last forever! It comes directly from worker's paychecks, not a suplus trust fund! Sounds a little like Clinton's "contributions" when speaking about taxes.
"Even if the trust fund does run out, Social Security will still be able to pay eighty percent of promised benefits. The actual shortfall would be a pretty small part of the federal budget, quite easily made up from other sources. Once the whole baby-boomer generation is into the retirement pool, Social Security's share of the gross domestic product will only increase by about two percent. Well, President Bush's tax cuts are more than two percent of GDP -- and they're happening right now, not fifty years from now. So the idea that there's this Social Security thing that is a huge problem is just wrong." Krugman shrugs off a 20% loss in benefits in the future as moderate and acceptable, yet simultaneously derides Bush's proposal to reduce benefits by actually giving (or letting the taxpayer keep) the money they earned to invest just like Krugman does. If "the shortfall would be a pretty small part of the federal budget, quite easily made up from other sources", why not use those "other sources" now, to fill the gap that Bush's plan puportedly will create?
Why does Krugman ignore the possibility that the average person could simple use a modified conventional or Roth IRA, or conservative municipal bond etc., and avoid the risk of investment in the stock market altogether. Even the average savings account would pay as much as you are likely to get from SS, and the money would remain YOURS, not the government's, to pass on if YOU pass on.
Krugman is a partisan ass in economist's clothing.
Sorry, my HTML editing isn't what it used to be. My comments may be italicized, but won't be in quotes.
Aren't Paul Krugman's hands still shaking (and isn't he still subject to sudden, surprise bowel movement) after that debate he had with Bill O'R about 5 months back?
Word is that Bill cornered him in the locker room afterwards and took his lunch money.
"It's hard to understand why anyone would want to return us to the days before the New Deal, when millions of elderly people lived in poverty."
Aaaargh Matey's, let's throw the old people on a big bonfire and be done with them all!! Or maybe just keelhaul the lot of them! Perhaps there are still some salt mines that need slave labor! (all said with a compassionate conservative voice).
Hard to understand? Why the thrill of beating old people like Krugman with their canes should be reason enough!
This has to be the most colossally ignorant statement in the history of colossally ignorant statements. This guy claims to be an economist. Yet, he believes the way to control costs is to remove price from the consumer’s cost/benefit calculations when they make medical purchasing decisions. How does one ever get to a position of authority in economics without mastering the most basic and proven theorem, the relationship between supply and demand?
Hiring Krugman to teach economics is like hiring an illiterate junior high dropout to teach Shakespeare.
Check out my post #7...
"We've secretly switched the text of Krudman's ramblings with Freidrich Hayek's Road To Serfdom, let's see if the students notice!"
"The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus
Uh, Mr. Weasel... your party, the Blubbas, et al, continue to this day to tell anyone who'll listen that the surplus was real, the money was in the bank until that nasty President Bush came along and give it to his rich buddies.
Right now Social Security has a large and growing trust fund -- a surplus that has been collected to pay for the surge in benefits we'll experience when the baby boomers start to retire.
Do you mean to imply that them nasty republicans aren't spending our SS like the dem congress did for years and years? Or did we find the keys to algore's lockbox?
It's been highly successful,
That would be why all those grandmas have to choose between dog food and their meds, correct?
The best way to contain those costs is to go to a single-payer system, one in which the government insures everyone.
Since you're so full of, uh, truth, why don't you tell readers just how wonderful government health care will be, tell us how we'll get unlimited care just like we do now, you lowlife scum sucking bugeyed bastard.
Somebody who has a subscription to this screed should ferret out the CLINTON STATEMENTS re SS and let these people have it. The President has already alluded to these statements by saying he was grateful for Clinton's comments about out fragile SS really is.
No self respecting tattoo shop owner would advertise or want to be discussed in Rolling Stone magazine! By GOD, man... a bunch of LOW-LIFE SOCIALIST MISCREANTS might come into our shop!!!
(from a heavily tattooed conservative guy ehhehehe)
I think some bloggers have found quotes from Krugman back from the 90s that contradict his current statements on Social Security. If I had the time, I'd find and post links.
Paul Krugman: The Fake Economist
Are you suggesting the bonds shouldn't be redeemed?
I am suggesting that it will take a tax hike or more borrowing to redeem the bonds, since the government spent that money long ago. And a tax hike or borrowing hike was exactly what the trust fund was supposed to prevent - so it is worthless.
Liberals like Krugman apparently beleive that you can both spend money and simulataneously treat it as an asset. Which, if it were tried by a private pension firm, would result in long visits to Club Fed. The trust fund is Enron-style accounting - oh, that's right, Krugman consulted with Enron, I believe, so he's familiar with the concepts.
What does it matter? Seriously.
The "bonds" are meaningless.
Naw, haha I know you were just teasing. I have a good sense of humor. I'm not a tattoo artist myself, but have many friends that are, and have tattoo shops as customers for my computer repair / web design business... besides being heavily tattooed myself.
I just like to poke holes in the "tattooed people are scumbags / criminals / liberals" stereotypes.
I'm a christian, computer techie, startup business guy and I'm in a rock band... and a no-holds-barred libertarian conservative! I guess I break all the stereotypes! With long sleeves on, you'd never know I was tattooed. Do you have a 20-something single daughter??? (again, just joking!!!)
;-)
That's it, I've seen the light. Guess I really missed some things when I snoozed through economics back in school.
I'm starting my own retirement trust fund. Every month I'll just write a check to myself in the amount of $10K, and stick it in a box for use when I retire. What the heck, I want to live well, let's make it $30K.
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