I'm just getting into the old social insurance texts by Rubinow and Epstein. The political need to impose a market insurance straitjacket on SS is brought out more clearly. The trust fund is the least of the problems. In general, this has been a fundamental problem in U.S. public policy for centuries--implementing social welfare policies under the weight of laissez-faire ideology.
But I would say that although the bonds do not reflect any specifically demarcated, income-generating activity, they do reflect the USG's tax capacity, backed by the force of law and special bodies of armed men, so I sez the bonds are too worth something. Exactly what they claim to be worth, in fact. Imagine a big corporation issuing bonds that are paid out of some reserve within their otherwise diverse and complex holdings. The sub-account is basically fungible. The value of the bonds depends on the firm's position as a whole. This would be true if the firm engaged in no production per se, as well if its income derived from outright criminal activity. "Transfer" is reductionist terminology in re: SS. That somebody pays and somebody gets is trivial. There is much else going on. SS benefits are triggered by contingencies and have insurance value ex ante that is not the same as the nominal cash flying back and forth. It is useful in some contexts to focus on the transfer aspect, but it does a basic injustice to the program, and to the tenable functions of social-democracy or socialism in general. mbs -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 5:03 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: bush & SS Daniel Davies wrote: >Or in other words, Social Security is a transfer program, not a savings >program, and it was an achingly stupid rhetorical move for the >Democratic Party to start defending it as a savings program. But they're trapped by the rhetoric that FDR used from the beginning - in order to avoid tripping American suspicions about "welfare," it was presented as "insurance." The truth of its being a transfer program had to be hidden. Doug
