Krugman: Social Security Is "Where Government Excels"

[Suzanimal]

Paul Krugman is thrilled by a bold new idea going around Washington: expanding government entitlements, instead of cutting them. This original and innovative plan — after all, who can even remember the last time government expanded entitlements? — is a real game changer.

Democrats have decided to break with Beltway orthodoxy, which always calls for cuts in “entitlements.” Instead, they’re proposing that Social Security benefits actually be expanded.

This is a welcome development in two ways. First, the specific case for expanding Social Security is quite good. Second, and more fundamentally, Democrats finally seem to be standing up to antigovernment propaganda and recognizing the reality that there are some things the government does better than the private sector.

Yes, finally, politicians are standing up to antigovernment fundamentalists and seizing more of taxpayers' money to hand out to special interest groups and voting blocs. It’s a big step for them, but I’m sure they’ll get the hang of it.

Krugman knows that expanding entitlements is smart because Social Security is “where government excels.”

Maybe we wouldn’t need Social Security if ordinary people really were the perfectly rational, farsighted agents economists like to assume in their models (and right-wingers like to assume in their propaganda). In an idealized world, 25-year-old workers would base their decisions about how much to save on a realistic assessment of what they will need to live comfortably when they’re in their 70s. They’d also be smart and sophisticated in how they invested those savings, carefully seeking the best trade-offs between risk and return.

In the real world, however, many and arguably most working Americans are saving much too little for their retirement. They’re also investing these savings badly. For example, a recent White House report found that Americans are losing billions each year thanks to investment advisers trying to maximize their own fees rather than their clients’ welfare.

You “ordinary people” aren’t perfectly rational, so your extraordinary political leaders will need to take your money away, lest you squander it. We all know that politicians are perfectly rational, prudent, far-sighted beings from another galaxy.

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http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/deta...ernment-excels

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Krugman knows that expanding entitlements is smart because Social Security is “where government excels.”

Some people just need a good, swift kick in the ass.

[heavenlyboy34]

LOL @ Krugman.

[Spikender]

Social Security Is "Where Government Excels"

This is both the worst and best joke of all time.

Krugman's on that good $#@!.

[Ronin Truth]

Well I guess if you're a huge fan of coercive extortion at implied gunpoint, maybe.

[Paul Or Nothing II]

Some people just need a good, swift kick in the ass.

Pretty much my thoughts.

Seriously! How retarded is this guy!

Well I guess if you're a huge fan of coercive extortion at implied gunpoint, maybe.

Yeah, which he is.......

[ctiger2]

[DevilsAdvocate]

Why would he possibly say something so demonstrably wrong? Social Security is horrible, the money has already been spent, it's currently running as a Ponzie scheme.

I can't believe this guy was given a Nobel Prize. It seems the only prerequisite for winning the prize nowadays is "being really really liberal". It's turning into a joke, a total mockery of it's former self. The Nobel committee has totally ruined their own credibility.

Barack Obama? Al Gore? Really???

[ClydeCoulter]

Save for the future, and it gets eaten up by inflation. How much should someone 25, now, save for when they are 60+? Who the hell knows!

Since they've already stolen, in many ways, all of the funds, how can they expand it? Oh, they need to more to steal, and hand out in unjustified ways...maybe they want to implode it finally so that it won't have to be paid back.

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx