There is what looks to be a good article on Social Security in the latest *Nation* magazine (February 8, 1999), "The Real Threat to Social Security" by Robert Dreyfuss. I haven't read but a few quick sentences, but here's a blip: "the financial services industry --- not only Wall Street but banks and insurance companies --- is trying to keep out of sight. Fearful of being accused of trying to gorge itself, vulturelike, on the carcass of Social Security, the money men are instead maneuvering quietly, behind the scenes, to guide the debate over privatization". He does say that "already Social Security accounts for a larger portion of the federal budget than the Pentagon". What are the figures for these today? Using his figures, I get $480 billion per year for Social Security. Is this correct? He says that proposals to privatize one-sixth of the system would take $80 billion (hence the 480 figure I derived above) and put it into private accounts. From these transactions, he says it is assumed that "something like 5 percent would be eaten up in bureaucratic and administrative costs, investment and management fees, and enforcement and compliance costs". Dean Baker in the *Washington Post* claims that "In privatized retirement systems in Chile and Great Britain, these costs have run between one percent and 2 percent annually", but both these sets of numbers sound too low. I thought Doug Henwood said that Chile's system was gobbling up much higher percentages (30%?). Anyway, this looks like a valuable article because it does name some of the players behind the push to privatize. Bill
