Krugman: Borrow, Speculate and Hope
Let's hope that all the talk of privitization of social security is just a case of the neocons throwing crap against the wall to see if it will stick.
"Once you realize that privatization really means government borrowing to speculate on stocks, it doesn't sound too responsible, does it? But the details make it considerably worse......There is, by the way, a precedent for Bush-style privatization. One major reason for Argentina's rapid debt buildup in the 1990's was a pension reform involving a switch to individual accounts .....So Mr. Bush intends to emulate a plan that helped set the stage for Argentina's economic crisis.
If Mr. Bush were to say in plain English that his plan to solve our fiscal problems is to borrow trillions, put the money into stocks and hope for the best, everyone would denounce that plan as the height of irresponsibility. The fact that this plan has an elaborate disguise, one that would add considerably to its costs, makes it worse. "