The Angry Bear

The scary headlines of the past few days have been well-discussed below by Dale Coberly and Barkley Rosser. Data, however, is only as good as its assumptions, and the overall trend is well worth a glance. (Note: I took the 2013-2017 data from BC professor (and director of their Center for Retirement Research) Alicia H. Munnell’s Table 1 here. Year of Trustees Report: 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 First year outgo exceeded income excluding interest...

(Dan here…Social Security is an issue that seems to generate a lot of firm beliefs and passion, as witness recent threads.  It is rare that people refer to actuary material.  On the other sides of the issue are people like Andrew Biggs, who is knowledgeable and smart in his arguments.  I am posting this as a reminder to readers that contributors do usually go the extra mile…in this case even recently, and since 2008 with Dale, Bruce Webb, and Arne...

Media Continues VSP Story On Social Security Here we go again.  We have arrived at the time for the release of the annual Social Security Administration (SSA) report.  It got the usual headlines across the media, that the SSA will “run out of money” in 2034. Most of the stories played it all scary, although noting that after the system will still pay 3/4 of what it was.  But, of course, Congress can act now to fix the system the stories say, leaving it...

I think this one year old brilliant as usual post by Noah Smith is well worth another read. I googled [noah smith mud moats] when I ran into a mud moat in a comment section flame war. Click the link but I will attempt to summarize. First a very very common debating trick is to argue that the other guy really has to read the vast literature produced by some school of thought before daring to critique it. The vast literature gets critics bogged down, the...

by Dale Coberly SOCIAL SECURITY TRUSTEES REPORT OUT TODAYor was it yesterday? Ho Hum.  The 2019 Social Security Trustees Report was released yesterday. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget published its usual half truths (also known as “lies”):. “We are all going to die!” The Reporters and Columnists Who Cover Them ™ reported the half truths as the whole story:  “We are all going to die!” The “Progressives”  demanded the “rich pay their...

USMCA, the International Trade Commission, and Kevin Hassett Tracey Samuelson of Market Place writes: USMCA would slightly boost U.S. economy, says ITC report – On Thursday, the International Trade Commission released its assessment of the projected economic impact of USMCA, President Trump’s proposed replacement for NAFTA. The report shows the new deal is projected to boost the U.S. economy by .35% when fully implemented. I will to read this report after...

Nailed it! Three weeks ago I wrote No, the Meuller report ***DID NOT*** “find no collusion!” in which I lambasted and parsed Barr’s conclusory snippet of the Mueller report, to wit, that “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” I pointed out that:  … the bracketed [T] in Barr’s quote of Mueller is doing a lot of work. Because...

Married male with children, who was asked to write on three different subjects concerning women’s healthcare by the ConsumerSafety.Org . Although I have worked in the healthcare product industry, I am not a doctor. All three of the healthcare issues I discuss scream for solutions as to what has been done, what should have been done, and how they impact women. I have no doubt if these problems impacted men as much as they do women, a Congress made up...