the system. I believe this is a good idea. However, it’s not without its drawbacks. The rewards for Social Security recipients would (probably) be great, but the risks would (possibly) be great as well. The long-term growth rate of the American economy has been excellent. But that excellence could be destroyed by the same sticky-little-handed politicians who’ve got their fingers in the Social Security till. Many people with far greater knowledge of economics than I have also think privatizing Social Security is a good idea. These people were particularly influential during the George W. Bush administration. But they – and President Bush – discovered that there was a very considerable popular political resistance to the concept. If you want to change the way Social Security works, you’re going to have to start by changing the way voters’ minds work. You decry the way wealth is distributed in our society – and not without reason. To compare what a Kardashian is paid with what a high school math teacher is paid is to stare into the abyss of evil. But is this the worst kind of evil possible? In order to radically change the way wealth is distributed in our (more or less) free market society we would have to grant enormous power to our political system. You yourself point out how grasping and greedy our politicians are already. Do you think they would become less grasping and greedy if they had control of all of America’s money (instead of just much too much of it)? If a tiger eats a baby every day of the year until Ash Wednesday, do you expect the tiger will give up baby-eating for Lent?
of our social safety nets. Other countries get it right. What is our problem in the most successful, (?) wealthy country in the world that far too much of the money floats to the top, like cream, while the “milk” (the ordinary people) continue to hold that cream up and support their ridiculously, absurdly wealthy lifestyles? In truth, anyone can only spend so much money, and then it becomes a ridiculous test of what ludicrous purchase they can make to “out-do” one of their peers – you know, like yachts that cost more than any home most of us will never even see, ostrich leather jackets, etc., and so on. Those same people bitch about taxes, when in fact, they will probably never miss that money. They already have so much there is no way they can possibly spend it all in their lifetime. We’ve all heard it – “Money is the root of all evil.” And the people who passed that bit of information along were so right. Too much of it changes everything that matters and solves absolutely nothing in the hands of too few. – Margo A. P.J. O’Rourke comment: Margo, as a friend of Adam Smith’s remarked after an evening of conversation with the great man, “You have said a book.” And to reply to you in detail would be a book-length undertaking. You bring up a number of fascinating – and difficult – points. Let me respond to just two of them: Social Security accounts and wealth distribution. The only way to keep the “sticky little hands” of politicians off Social Security is to privatize
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