Commentary by Roger Erickson
"When you come across a group of people, digging themselves into a hole, and offer to help ... they'll invariably ask you to jump in and help them dig!" [Folk wisdom.]
Several essays from The Polemicist blog illustrate this point - regarding the madness associated with Social Security debates.
TP is a progressive blog reportedly written by Jim Kavanagh, and it certainly does tp a wide range of Luddite illogic masquerading as public policy.
Kavanagh's heart and mind certainly seem directed towards serving public purpose. However, this particular policy battlefield of SocSec, like all battlefields, is clouded with the fog of war, where subterfuge, feint and counter-feint are the rule, and where survival always tracks internal pursuit of indirection while successfully misdirecting opponents.
Therefore, in the final analysis, it's not clear that all of Jim Kavanagh's messages on SocSec help any more than they hurt. Targeting the topic is a necessary but not sufficient start, but we simply have to do better, in order to preserve our nation and help the US Middle Class survive. It's a long, drawn out Class War after all, not just one Pyrrhic battle.
If you read this original memo, re Luther Gulick & SocSec, you'll see clearly that everything that even Kavanagh says is hopelessly out of paradigm. It's therefore very confusing - which is of course, dangerous. Even a moment of confusion can be fatal in any conflict, including in politics, policy and Class War.
What is the source of SocSec confusion?
Opponents of the Middle Class created an enormous Straw Man at the very start - see Gulick's memo on the unnecessary invention of political FICA taxes. Proponents of SocSec not only acquiesced in this initial calamity, they then compounded their mistake and let that Straw Man propagate and multiply. Eventually, the GOP successfully used the multitude of Straw Arguments to keep the electorate hopelessly confused, divided & conquered on what is actually a very simple topic.
In the end, SocSec is simply another public policy, no different from highways, NASA, DoD, the Arts, etc, etc, etc. All the nitpicking details Kavanagh is tied up exploring, dissecting and selectively refuting are smoke and mirrors ... EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!
We can't win by accepting use of our opponents terms and semantics in this debate!
Invariably, those who are allowed to frame the terms of a debate, have already won. Marriner Eccles himself constantly referred to this hard lesson, learned in his early years in public policy. Those who get the right to introduce the "1st draft" have every opportunity to own the subsequent policy direction!
Jane and Joe Sixpack, it is long past time to get out your logic 2x4, and bludgeon this debate back to a sensible 1st draft. Please set it to one we can build public purpose on, not just Class War.
If not? Then you may as well give up. Accepting the GOP terms & semantics on SocSec discussions is a total waste of time. It constitutes capitulation up front. If you want to shape this twisted situation, just cut 'em off at the pass. Cut right through the Gordian Knotheads, and absolutely insist on keeping the premise of the discussion focused on a semblance of reality - not on Straw Man details.
Otherwise, you may as well submit to discussing how many economists can dance on a downtrodden pinhead named Joe Sixpack!
Why would we bother putting fiat in reserve? What does that even mean? Is it pure sophistry? How COULD we do so even if we wanted to? What on earth are they even talking about? Are they simply baffling us with bullshit? YA THINK?!!
Fiat is, after all, a euphemism for Public Initiative. As always, initiative put off is initiative lost forever. Please turn the discussion away from nonsensical smoke & mirrors like Trust Funds and Tax Rates, and return it to the only parameters we can actually benefit from - as we do for all other public policies. Let's keep the discussion focused on the TANGIBLE, OPERATIONAL CAPABILITIES of current & future electorates, and ways to productively minimize their Output Gaps. Either you use your 2x4 on frauds, or they use their 2x4 on you. There's no benefit from stalemate, only endless economic bruises and loss of National Security.
Even participating in a discussion about squirreling away public initiative (aka, fiat) in mythical "reserved fiat" accounts is insanely inane. Economists actually have a formal term for such insanity - "Demand Leakages." It's still an insane topic to even focus on. The fact that we're discussing such euphemisms at all is our best metric for how dumb, confused, divided and self-conquered we are.
Instead, let's just demand a stop to logic leaks, and focus on building real capabilities and tangible capacity? Can we just be positive, not negative?
For Pete's sake! There is a better way. Let's just get back to American ingenuity? Please? Right now?
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