July 24, 2001

Re: Critiquing privatization propaganda

The enclosed letters to The Wall Street Journal and New York Times critique the privatization-oriented articles by the co-chairs of President Bush's Social Security commission and a professor of economics at U. Cal., Berkeley.

Whether deliberate or not, the propaganda content runs quite high. Moynihan and Parsons (WSJ, 6/15) would have you believe, for example, that privatization will "allow workers to build and estate that they can leave to their beneficiaries," whereas Social Security will not. But estates are commonly associated with the higher economic classes, so that many workers could be beguiled into believing that savings under individual privatization accounts will transport them into such higher classes, a not very likely result.

Prof. Varian devotes ten paragraphs in his Economic Scene column (NYT, 5/31) to demonstrate that the stock market should not be relied on to provide a dependable source of retirement income, but he then concludes with a non sequitur: Social Security benefits should be cut to a mere poverty level and the contributions be invested in the stock market instead.

Call me if you have any question or comment. With best regards,

Sincerely,

David Langer

© 2001 DAVID LANGER COMPANY, INC.