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More Robert Pozen on Social Security

In this editorial[*1] in the Wall Street Journal, MFS Financial Advisors Chairman (and Dem.) Robert Pozen answers some of the critics and nay-sayers of Social Security reform.

Some excerpts:
If the litmus test of a reform plan is not cutting scheduled benefits for any significant group of workers, then no viable plan to restore Social Security’s solvency will pass muster.

. . . median workers would be able to buy 14% more in goods and services with their monthly checks from Social Security under progressive indexing in 2045 than they can with these checks today. That does not sound like a “benefit cut” in terms of real purchasing power.

And the money paragraph:
If Congress is attracted by a package of Social Security reforms combining a milder form of progressive indexing with a 2.9% surtax on earnings above $90,000, it must provide high earners with retirement benefits attractive to them. One possibility would be to devote 1.45% of the surtax to Social Security solvency, and to allow the other 1.45% to be allocated to a personal account invested in market securities. Since such an account would not divert existing taxes away from Social Security, it would not involve any increase in government borrowing. In short, the combined approach would let both parties win–Democrats would get a mix of higher taxes and progressive benefit changes, while Republicans would get personal investment accounts and constraints on benefit growth. And the solvency of Social Security would be restored for all American workers.

If you think you have an opinion on Social Security, you need to read and understand this article. It may change your perspective on the issue.

Morning Whip, 5/3/05

This should make it easier for readers to comment (please comment!) on articles as they’re posted.

Did I say “please comment” yet?

The Collapse of Big Media

Terry Eastland, editor of the Weekly Standard, has written an article for the Wilson Quarterly titled The Collapse of Big Media: Starting Over[*1] .

A few excerpts):

Here it bears noting that though journalists aspired to the status of professionals, they never acquired the self-regulatory mechanisms found in law, medicine, or even business. The nation’s journalism schools, which taught—and still teach—a craft better learned on the job, never really filled the void.

I think he hits one core of journalism’s problem here. They have aspired to be a “profession” but have failed to do those things which set the true professions apart from other avocations. One very important thing is that professional requirements (for physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc.) are to some extent enforced by law. Yet any kind of “professional” enforcement for journalism runs smack dab into the First Amendment.

(For your reference: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”)

Imagine that the Founding Fathers had written a Constitutional Amendment stating “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of medicine, or of engineering, or of accounting.”

To the traditional media, the new media have always looked awfully incomplete, as being more about politics and ideology than about news. Still, from their inception the new media have been landing blows on the old media precisely where it matters most. Remember that news is a thing made, a product, and that media with certain beliefs and values once made the news and then presented it in authoritative terms, as though beyond criticism.

Throughout most of American history, the press has been wildly, blatantly partisan. The rise of the “objective” reporter and the view of journalism as a “profession” have been side by side. But there are very real, legal requirements and responsibilities for an engineer who signs off on a design, or a physician who writes an order. This doesn’t mean that bad engineering and bad medicine don’t happen, but it does mean that there are controls in place to limit those occurances. There are no such controls in journalism.

Yet for the old media to become newly credible, to regain respect and audience, in a country more populous and less enamored of elites than it once was, and more red than blue, they’re going to have to dial down their imperial arrogance. They’re going to have to learn from the best of what the new media offer, and perhaps even recruit bloggers to help with news judgment and fact-checking. And they’re definitely going to have to look for news in places they formerly did not.

An excellent piece, well worth the time to read it.

Morning Whip 5/2/05

The Whip is pretty lame again today. But, the garage is clean, and the dog poop has been picked up/hosed off of the back yard patio, so the morning isn’t a complete, um, wash. So, let’s give it a try.

Social Security ‘nerd’ earns Bush’s attention[*1] . See what happens when people actually talk to one another rather than just shout back and forth? I don’t know for sure if Robert Pozen’s Social Security reform idea is really the way to go, but it’s heartening to actually see constructive ideas rather than knee-jerk obstructionism come from the D side of the political spectrum.

The prosecutor is looking into Jennifer Wilbanks’ western vacation[*2] .

Laura Bush has once again proved that conservatives’ senses of humor[*3] are better developed.

In a related story, a parody/hoax news release this bogus press release[*4] purportedly from a Christian group complaining about the First Lady’s performance was swallowed hook line and sinker by several media outlets including MSNBC. The real Traditional Values Coalition[*5] just says this “comes with the territory.”

Cleaning up the Abu Gharib mess. Lyndie Englund pleads gulity[*6] becoming the latest to, um, go down.

In sports, Stop The Presses: The Royals have won two in a row![*7] What’ll be next, the Red Sox winning the World Series? Oh, that already happened? Well then, how about the Cubs[*8] ?

Morning Whip, 5/1/05

You know, there’s really nothing in the Sunday news that I feel like highlighting or commenting on. I think I’ll go clean the garage. We’ll try to Whip again tomorrow . . .

Runaway Bride

First, as a matter of full disclosure, my revulsion to Julia Roberts began after I was subjected to the movie Runaway Bride[*1] both going and coming on Northwest Airlines during a business trip some years ago. I thought at the time that (on top of it being just a bad movie), the Roberts character was a contemptible serial emotional abuser that no self-respecting man with a lick of common sense would tolerate for five seconds.

So you can imagine my reaction to the news that Jennifer Wilbanks’ week long deception[*2] of her fiance, her family, and the media. The only slack I will give her is that she only ran away once.

I’d even stop short of full condemnation if she hadn’t reported her little bus trip as a kidnapping. She’s quoted as “needing some time alone.” It is my fervent hope that the judicial system gives her exactly that.

Meanwhile, her fiance and family try to pick up the pieces, and the emotional pornographers in the media move on to the next juicy tear-jerker.