A recent opinion piece in Business Week asked if Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. The author suggested it was not, since, according to him, it could be paid for by increases in productivity. I waded trough some of the reader comments and, after the waves of nausea abated, offered my own:
I suspect that former Enron execs, now guests of the feds, made similar optimistic, forward-looking calculations of income. If this is the standard of fiscal prudence and due diligence to which we hold our elected officials, we deserve what we get; going back to basics, here is what we get:
Money is supposed to be the stored value of work I have done (not the root of all evil), so that I may exchange the value of my work to fulfill my needs and desires when it suits me, rather than having to immediately exchange my work for goods or services.
Now, it takes $7.20 today to purchase what one dollar I contributed in 1960 would have purchased (this is inflation). So, for the dollar's worth of buying power I contributed in 1960, I receive $0.13 in return in 2009. Then, since I have made the obvious mistake of saving for my own retirement, 85% of my SSI will be taxed as ordinary income at my marginal rate, further reducing the return of the 12.5% of my lifetime earnings which has been under the government stewardship praised by so many.
I can only conclude that the public schools - funded in part with "borrowed" Social Security dollars - have succeeded so wildly in their purpose that they have produced a populace so dumb that it clamors for jail for Enron execs, yet elects officials who do precisely the same thing, only on a far larger scale. The only difference is that Enron lacked the police power (ultimately jails, guns and bayonets) to steal the value of years of individuals' work - which is to steal a significant portion of their lives. That, gentle reader, is nothing but serfdom.
you mistake the aim of modern public education - bismarck had it established in order to prepare the males of a young germany (in the 1860's) for service in the army, not for reasoned voting purposes - most other countries did likewise - and as you can see in israel, where women fight on both sides, the broadening of schools to include females is not out of synch with the original aims
don't expect so much from homo sapiens - our mammalian brains and autonomous nervous/endocrine systems are not well-suited for the modern world. Our success has left most unable to function usefully.
Posted by: frankl | 05 January 2009 at 16:08
As my lawyer friends say, "admitted in part and denied in part." Whatever the purpose of public education in 19th century Germany, like all public institutions, it has undergone mission creep. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with (post) modern public education knows that its primary mission today - regardless of why it arose in the first instance - is leftist political indoctrination. A few minutes in any school or on any college campus will make this exquisitely clear.
As to the unsuitability of our mammalian brains, you may well have a point. However, given the oppressive complexity of modernity, it may just be that the neocortex, not just the archipallium, is also not up to the task. I compliment you on an interesting line of thought. Perhaps it is a partial explanation of why much of the history of the 20th century is writ in blood. This century is still young.
Posted by: civil westman | 05 January 2009 at 20:04
The illusion of success is our modern educational system. I can't wait to go into debt to finance my son's education. On the other hand, I'll just teach him about the basics of banking and finance, then he will own the souls of the so called educated ones. Now that would be a better way, to finance somebody elses illusion of success is always more profitable...lesson over
Posted by: Free People | 06 January 2009 at 04:21
if you persevere in math and engineering you be least exposed to the leftist claptrap - after an undergrad degree in math/engineering, you'll be more than prepared for law or accounting or medicine or teaching or banking or computer work - but if you insist on the social sciences, then yes, sadly you'll be swamped by the sea of weaker minds who coast along - so it goes
Posted by: frankl | 07 January 2009 at 01:32
I figured that out when I received my batchelor degrees in 1993. That's why I emigrated from America in 1994. The system is analogous to what Isaac Azimov outlined in the Foundation saga. The empire is falling due to social inertia and no counter action will suffice to prevent it. Just get out of the way, buy gold/silver, get out of debt, and establish yourself in a decent community. I did that in New Zealand and at least I feel that I've done the best I can for my two kids.
Posted by: Ken | 08 January 2009 at 11:42