The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issued a report Monday that pointed out that even though the US proposals will yield a system that reaches the poor in a more redistributive way than many other countries, the average pay outs of the government pensions are rather low at around 51% of a retiree’s previously earned salary as compared to over 70% in other OECD countries.

Only New Zealand and Ireland outperform the US in reaching its poorest nationals because they have simple flat-rate state pensions. The rather low proposed US pensions payouts will safeguard the wider economy from serious risks that economists have warned of for ages, yet it also shows just how serious the issue of funding pensions has become.

Some people are not quite convinced that all has been done to avert a disaster. IF nothing would be done, the system would prove insolvent by estimated dates between 2018 and 2040, and this would pose considerable dangers for the wider economy. “I believe that 2018 is in fact the time when the difficulties will begin [if nothing is done]. The reason is that the government securities held by the Social Security system are not any kind of actual asset”, says George Reisman, an economist professor who issued an article on the subject for the Mises Institute, which subscribes to the Austrian Theory of Economics (www.mises.org)

He adds that government securities as such are not the only investments held by the country’s institutional investor base, but pretty much a claim against the US Government to pay money that it does not possess. At a time that a negative gap comes into being, the US government will simply have to raise taxes taxes, borrow more from the public, or inflate the money supply to make ends meet.

“Probably, just as has been the case many times since the system was established seventy years ago, social security payroll taxes will be increased one or more times again between now and 2018, and that will provide the funds”, says Reisman.

Yet President Bush opted for as few tax increases as possible. In what is described as a rather Democrat-style move, the US leader has chosen to recast the 70-year-old retirement program under a ‘progressive indexation’ design. This means that the lowest income earners are not becoming any worse off but that the people with middle and high incomes will suffer a severe setback in income soon after they retire. Talk of the system becoming an ‘empty shell’ for the better off is resultantly fashionable.

The plans make US Social Security is one of the least generous public pension systems in advanced countries, providing an employee on average earnings a pension after tax of 51 per cent of pre-retirement income, according to a comparative study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development issued this Monday.

The average employee in an advanced country can expect a government pension of 70 per cent of his or her after-tax earnings at retirement compared with 39 per cent for an equivalent US citizen.

The sustainability of pension systems is a large issue worldwide and countries around the globe are generally drawing up rather similar systems to cope putting the burden with the private sector and with the workers themselves. The OECD says there is more variety in the pay outs and distributions of the systems per country, with improving fiscal sustainability overshadowing the attention they devote to pension adequacy.

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Reform Social Security has been talked of Capital Hill for many years. However, it is just put in a real action by President Bush recently. The reason is Social Security could have shortage to pay retirees by year 2018 and bankruptcy by year 2042 because the growth of retirees is faster than the contributors of Social Security. Privatization is the process of putting percentage of payroll tax of Social Security into private account that can be invested into stocks and bounds markets. Stocks and Bounds usually make more interest than the growth of Social Security. Thus, in turn, we respect more money to make up the shortage of Social Security. If it does, the Social Security is saved. Otherwise, It does not. This involves timing, ratio, management, and evidence.

Timing. Someone says SS is not in danger. If legal retirement is 65 years old, then from 2005 to 2018 is 13-year, 65 - 13 = 52. This means if you are 52 years old or older, you have not in the era of the shortage of Social Security Fund. So, Social Security is not in danger for you. From 2005 to 2042 is 37 years, 65 - 37 = 28. This means if you are 28 years old in 2005, you will meet the SS bankruptcy by the time you retire. So, Social Security is in danger for you. However, 37 - 13 = 24 (period from shortage to bankruptcy) If in 2042 you are 65 years old, 65 - 24 = 41. This means you are 41 years old now and you need to do something right now before it is too late. If you are 20 years old in 2005, 28 - 20 = 8. This means that the timing of SS reform is 8 years too late. If we get it done 8 years ago, we won’t have bankruptcy in 2042.

Ratio. Argument on what percentage should we deduct from SS tax for private account. There are so many theories. But I believe that SS should keep 60% and private account 40% because we need 60% of SS tax to support the people who retired now. If 60% cannot cover, it means we have shortage now. For example, you start to work at 20 years old, you have 45 years working history. Your total life income is 45 thousands. 60% is 27 thousands and 40% is 18 thousands. 27000 x 0.3 = 8100 (Interest made from SS. Social Security pay 3% interest). 18000 x 1.1 = 19800 (Interest made from stocks and bounds. Interest is from 11% to 15% ). 45000 x 0.3 = 13500 (stay in SS only). 8100 + 19800 = 27900 (SS + Stocks and bounds).27900 - 13500 = 14400. This means even if your SS is bankrupt you still have 14400 in your private account. Under this ratio, private account can save SS. This is a hypothetical answer. We can choose a real person to reconstruct his working history base on his real 60% SS tax and past 45-year income of stock average on 40% of private account. We will see the real picture and the feasibility of privatization of SS.

Management. Is it true this transition from regular SS to privatization cost us a trillion? And our kids of kids will suffer from this big deficit? It really depends on how we manage private account. If we manage this private account with our regular bank deposit and employers send 40% SS tax to employees’ bank account directly and give a copy to SSA at the same time. There won’t be any transition cost. What trillion dollars are just 40% of private account and our kids of kids are the beneficiaries of this privatization. However, You do not always gain on stocks and bounds, and you may have a chance to lose. Therefore, the new laws need to be established so that investors can move their account from stock account to CD deposit freely and vice versa. When stocks price fall, you move it to saving account. Although the interest of saving account is lower than paid by SS, (current 1.25%) yet you won’t have a complete loss. The government should encourage financial institutions to compete for this business by telling investors how much you can benefit from their financial programs and the government is hand off but supervise the activities. I don’t know who designs the transition plan for the president. Is this plan aim for saving SS? Or boosting the stock market? Or both?

Evidence. President says that he just widens the coverage of federal employees used to have to the general public. I took his words for it. My own experience to prove the advantage of private account is that I put my IRA (Individual Retirement Account) into stock market and was handling by Washington Mutual Bank. The result is much better than my regular IRA account. If it is not for the down fall stock market in 2003, I would have made 4 times more interest than regular IRA account. This is why I suggest to establish new law to governing the practice of financial institutions and ask them to tell the investors when the stock market has big turbulence. Thus, investors’ loss will be minimal. Now everything is on internet, and I can watch stock IRA account closely. I don’t think there will be any big loss. Not all stocks are expensive one. Some stocks, called ‘Small Caps,’ cost only 38 cents per share and turn into $1.25 within a month. So, government should not limit certain stocks for private account. The limitation is financial institutions’ promise what they can do for the investors. All government does is watch financial institution closely and be sure they do what they have said.

In conclusion, majority of Americans go for president’s privatization of SS, but hate the cost of the transition plan. My friend Danny says ‘It is the bankrupt of America.’ Even president has said the transition cost 700 millions. I would rather leave SS alone because it may have some chances for next 37 years that can save SS. Such as ‘Increase immigration.’ ‘Encourage baby booming.’. And ‘Double the interests of SS.’ etc. It will not be too late on spending 700 millions or trillions to save SS then. If everybody follows my simple transition plan and opens a private account in his/her bank. Either 60% or 40% is lost, and he or she still has a manageable income to live. If he or she can have both in success, he or she will have a swell retirement.

Footnote.

Increase immigration. Start from year 2018 we increase immigrants to meet the shortage of workers who contribute the SS tax. Encourage baby booming. Give more birth of babies from year 2005 to year 2010. They become part of work force when they are 20-25 years old in year 2025 to year 2030. 2025 - 2018 = 7 this means that we only need portions of 700 million to support seven years. Or increase immigrants to cover that. 2042 - 2025 = 17. This means that new work force has 17 years to save SS bankruptcy. Double the interest of SS. There are 3 ways. 1. Lend SS tax for governmental projects (e.g., build highways.) Then collect the money from the users of highways to pay back SSA with interests. 2. Sell SS tax as bounds. The price of bounds goes up when more people use the highway. 3. Make the rich pay more tax because they enjoy society more. SS is a social program and is meant to help the poor and disables. The SS account is closed after you died but the private account can be passed on next generation. So, the rich have to pay more for it. We can apply all three in the same time. That is, we need the privatization of SS now but we don’t need to spend so much money for the time being.

Click on Translator choose language, just type in URL & click. You only type in once, it will translate the entire page. And page after page until all done. This page URL is http://drmasiw.tripod.com/privatiz.htm

Dr. Alexander Ma graduated from School of Language and Linguistics, Georgetown Unuversity, Washington D.C.

I sit here this morning seething as I am gathering my thoughts on the next J.R.’s Take. I am absolutely livid with the democratic presidential front runner, Sen. John F. Kerry, and so should you be. John F. Kerry has said that if elected, he will abandon the war on terror, begin a dialogue with terrorist regimes, and apologize for the mistakes of the Bush administration !

In a December foreign-policy address to the Council on Foreign Relations, Kerry called the war on terror, led by President Bush, “the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history.”

Kerry’s address was praised by the main stream media. “Kerry Vows to Repair Foreign relations,” headlined the Associated Press. The new focus on foreign policy “plays to Kerry’s strength” noted Knight Ridder News Service. “Kerry Vows to Change U.S. Foreign Policy; Senator Describes Steps he Would Take as President,” headlined the Washington Post. None of the major main stream media found Kerry’s address at all inappropriate.

Kerry promised that in the first 100 days of his administration that he would travel the world to denounce his predecessor, apologize for his “radically wrong” policy, and seek “cooperation and compromise” with friend and enemy. Kerry said he would go to the United Nations and travel to our allies and affirm that the United States has rejoined the community of nations.

Apologize ? Cooperation and Compromise ? Radically wrong policy ? What the hell is wrong with this guy ? He wants America to apologize for responding to a terrorist attack that killed 3,000 innocent, defenseless people, who were going about their business before they were rudely interrupted and killed or wounded. He wants us to apologize for a U.S. ship being attacked in a port in Yemen and 17 U.S. Sailors being killed and a ship being damaged. He wants us to apologize for two of our U.S. embassy’s being attacked and over 300 people being killed. He wants us to apologize for the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 that killed 6 innocent people and injured 1,000 more.

Apologize, Mr. Kerry ? Cooperate and compromise Mr. Kerry ? It’s a radically wrong policy to defend ourselves Mr. Kerry ? Let’s not forget that it was they (the terrorists) that attacked us. Let’s also not forget that with the exception of the 9/11 attacks, all the other terrorist attacks happened on the Clinton administrations watch. Yes Folks, can you believe it, the terrorists were attacking us even before Bush became president. I know some of you will find that to be a stunning revelation considering all you hear from the sniveling liberals is that we are hated by the terrorists because of Bush’s foreign policy. I guess the terrorists’ must have phoned Miss Cleo and got their reading and conducted pre-emptive terrorist strikes knowing that Bush would be President in the future.

It was the cooperate, compromise and apologize stratedgy that was radically wrong with the Clinton administration’s policies. Policies that gutted our military hardware, demoralized our military personnel, and invited our enemies to attack us, that led to the attacks of 9/11. The terrorists, making the mistake of listening to the ridiculous rhetoric of the whining liberals, believed that because President Bush narrowly won the 2000 election, that he had no mandate, that he would be a weak President. They, and the rest of the world, would soon find out otherwise.

The majority of the American People will never support apologizing or cooperating and compromising with our terrorist enemies, we have seen where that has gotten us, Mr. Kerry. The majority of Americans support the Presidents policies on the war on terror, even if they don’t agree with his other policies.

It appears, ladies and gentlemen that Kerry thinks this is still the ’70’s and just as he aided and abetted our enemies then, he is hell bent on doing the same thing again in 2005 if he is elected President.

Meet the new Kerry, same as the old Kerry !

I’m J.R. and that’s my take.

About the Author

Host of Talk Show America heard live Mon-Fri 4-6 PM on the IBC Radio Network. 24 year veteran police officer, former local politician and Director of Emergency Management in a Massachusetts town