Common Myths

  • Republicans are against unions
    Republicans are not always anti-union, but generally side with big business over the interests of labor. But lost in much of the discussions, is the awareness that big business usually consists of unions of owners. These owners collectively bargain with their employees, either with the employees singly or in groups. Quite often those groups of employees are not based on unions, but instead on bureaucratic determinations made by the corporation. Republicans, and often Democrats, will side with the more powerful union of owners against the employees. Why is there a false understanding of corporations? Because clearly the market supports unions of owners over individual large owners and because of decades of misconceptions often fostered by corporations. Somehow many believe unions of owners are efficient and unions of employees or consumers are inefficient. Of course, democracy, a system based on the equality of humans, can be portrayed as inefficient in the short terms and tyranny of the powerful much more efficient. And that gets to the main distinction in the form of unions of owners versus employees, generally corporations are anti-democratic (power decided by wealth) versus unions of labor or consumers (power decided by people).
  • Republican leaders are against regulations
    Look it up, regulations are essentially laws. What Republicans tend to be against are both laws and regulations that force corporations to favor protecting life over profits. Republicans tend to be strongly for regulations and laws that protect corporation profits and protect corportations being held accountable by a democratic society.
  • Social Security is running out of money
    Repeating a lie doesn't make it so. Williams repeats the myth that Social Security is running out of money despite evidence and protestations to the contrary by Krugman. Unfortunately this myth is designed to allow a wealthy minority to steal the savings of generations of Americans.

Cures for the common myth

  • HeadlineUpdate
    William Klein tears apart the headlines to get to the real story.
  • On the Media
    Show that savages co-opted and self-censored media coverage.
  • RIP - Wall Street Journal
    Until recently, perhaps, the best newspaper in the United States. Murdoch decided to squeeze the life out of this golden goose. Previously had fantastic muckracking pieces. The ruling class preferred WSJ to the whitewashed and watered down mass media.
  • Technorati

    Hidden among the millions of blogs and RSS feeds is the vox populi.

Main | January 2005 »

A better argument against privatizing Social Security

Open Letter to Paul Krugman,

First, thanks for taking time from your textbook writing to rail against the Republican's attempt to plunder Social Security. However, making reasoned arguments about the lottery nature of the stock market conflicts with a large segment of the lottery ticket buying public. There is another argument that might turn the Republicans against their own scheme.

First, I understand that the Republicans are not intending to allow Social Security participants to be able to vote by proxy or otherwise on the shares they would "own" of the numerous companies listed on the stock exchanges. And the Republicans would never allow civic minded money managers to handle the vast sums of money that will be invested (like some of the pension fund boards do now). But, I believe that once trillions of dollars of public funds are invested, and people understand that they own significant and, perhaps, controlling interest in these firms, they will demand certain decent behaviors from these firms.

So, in short, the argument is to assert that privatizing might be a great idea, because the public can finally assure that all public companies must provide comprehensive health coverage, to never allow companies to outsource solely based on using underpaid and poorly treated labor exchange rates, and to not allow public companies to endanger the health of our neighborhoods or the world.

Once the Republicans realize that the public will flock to privatization based on this potential (and a promise by Democrats who would sign on to this), the Republicans will lose. They cannot afford to threaten the control of the private sector based on a risky get rich quick scheme. Currently, Republicans believe that they can steal Social Security, and that the new owners of stock market will allow a small wealthy minority to leverage small shareholders' shares while taking advantage of higher yielding government bonds.

Thanks for reading this. Let me know if it makes sense and worth using.
--addendum: Don't believe that Republicans are aware of and scared of this, just read the CATO white paper (or my copy if they take theirs down).

December 21, 2004 in Social Security | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)