This is an important topic. We need to work quickly to ensure that people who will have to defend social security actually understand it; then to think about how to campaign in an environment in which the existence of a "problem" is media commonsense.
For those of us who are semi-technical, it would be great to have a spread-sheet based model that we could use to demonstrate the structure of the "problem" and show its sensitivity to assumptions. One thing that Pen-L types could add is a disaggregation by class as well as by age, that would model the redistribution that goes on.
For the public, how about a video-game built on credible (by which I mean to us, not to them) economics and demographics?
finally, how do we address the very basic and reasonable argument that people who expect to live longer ought to expect to work longer?
--Paul
