PAUL KRUGMAN: I called it a Ponzi scheme before Rick Perry did.

Social Security is structured from the point of view of the recipients as if it were an ordinary retirement plan: what you get out depends on what you put in. So it does not look like a redistributionist scheme. In practice it has turned out to be strongly redistributionist, but only because of its Ponzi game aspect, in which each generation takes more out than it put in. Well, the Ponzi game will soon be over, thanks to changing demographics, so that the typical recipient henceforth will get only about as much as he or she put in (and today's young may well get less than they put in).

To be fair, in 1997 Krugman was still a liberal, but at least then he was an honest liberal.

Linked from here via Instapundit.

FEDERAL GERRYMANDERING: Justice Department about to block Texas redistricting plans.

IT BEGINS: Obama Should Quit. Well, it's not the first time it's been suggested.

FOX NEWS POLL: Would you change your lifestyle if you could be assured you could live to be 100? At last check, the poll was 46% 'no', 36% 'yes' and 18% undecided.

I take that to mean "Nanny staters, you'll have to pry my cold, dead hand away from that donut."

SOME THOUGHTS on Social Security.

The Rick Perry quote is wrong in one detail. It's incorrect to say that in 2036 Social Security will only be able to pay back 76 cents for each dollar contributed unless reforms are implemented; the correct statement is that Social Security will be able to pay back only 76 cents for each dollar of projected benefits unless reforms are implemented.

HEH. NAVY FOOTBALL supports the Tea Party.

THESE GUYS are schoolyard bullies.

SHOE gets it.

BERING STRAIT TUNNEL to connect U.S. and Russia?


The comments are uniformly negative, and often overwrought. As a recent visitor, I wonder what Alaskans think of the idea?

HEADLINE CORRECTED: 75% of Congress Lack Economics or Business Education.

AU CONTRAIRE: About 10 days ago, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote an OpEd whining about crony capitalism, 9/11, and the war in Iraq. While there is some merit to his remarks about crony capitalism, his comments about Iraq are particularly irksome.

I'm a proponent of Gen. Powell's "you broke it, you own it" philosophy, or as my Dad used to say, "Always finish what you've started." Any living beings under your protection, be they nations, cats, dogs, birds -- babies -- are not convenience items to be discarded when no longer useful.

GET A JOB OR ELSE: IF ObamaCare prevails, what's to prevent an ObamaJobs mandate?

IT CAN'T BE SAID LOUDLY OR OFTEN ENOUGH: Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi!

WHY BLACK AMERICA should give up on the Democratic Party.

A real What's the Matter with Kansas? moment.

WALTER E. WILLIAMS on Social Security: "[W]hen God gave Moses the Commandments, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ he did not mean unless you get a majority vote in Congress.”

FOR THOSE OF YOU following the news, here are some photos of the devastation in and around Bastrop, Texas.

NOT IN AMERICA -- YET: New Resolution Could Bar Parents From Knowing Baby’s Sex. Interestingly, Fox reports it as "baby's gender." Sex is the physical characteristic; gender is the psychological/social construct. Ultrasound distinguishes sex, not gender.

Political correctness. What is this world coming to?