Guest Writer - Why is the Judiciary Under Attack

The following was posted in a lawyer listserve I belong to. I asked the author, David Ransin, for permission to post it here, because I think he places the current attacks on lawyers, the judiciary and the legal system into context.

Why are our judges under attack - accused of making law?

Because (and no, I'm not paranoid) it is all just one small part of the power grab underway against the entire civil justice system in their quest for absolute power, and we know what that does.

This is all part of a grand scheme to consolidate power.

The party seeking the power has very successifully villified "trial attorneys", are equally after worker's comp attorneys, and now bankruptcy attorneys....and attacks on other areas of the law will be coming soon...why? Because what these lawyers do costs businesses money and profit, and money and profit are superior in their minds to the welfare of the common man; first the trial attorneys, don't let them be able to hold "us" responsible for our mistakes and dangerous products, grant us immunity for all negligence of any kind above 250,000 in noneconomic damages regardless of the severity of the fault or the damages, if the little guy we hurt or kill wants to sue us, make sure he knows it might cost him tens of thousands if he loses just to scare him off, then make sure the masses who've been injured just a little ($5 each times 10,000,000) are at a severe disadvantage and make it much harder for them to mount a class action to keep us from fleecing the niave public, then when the common man making minimum wage with no health insurance becomes totally insolvent make it much harder for him to find a good attorney and file bankruptcy.......

Look around you, they control the whitehouse and congress, and they don't want judges changing (the common law) what they ram through congress.

We are headed toward class warfare as the poor and underprivileged are pitted against the rich, an age old scenario.

Remember the oft-repeated and almost always quoted out of context from Shakespeare about "first, kill all the lawyers"????

If you read that quote in the proper context, it was suggested as a necessary step to first kill all the lawyers because they are the guardians of the rights of the common man and total power and control could not be seized while the lawyers stood in the way.....

That's where we are heading, straight down hill and the naive masses are eating up the lies like "cake" and not seeing the truth.

Our rights are being eroded at an historically rapid rate and once taken away, it is a long and difficult road to get them back......

Kline - Puritan, Perverted Voyeur, or Both?

It is hard to discuss Phill Kline's latest attack on women without having Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale, come to mind. In that book, lower-class women are kept for breeding purposes in a theocracy that sounds suspiciously like what the right wing is seeking. If Phill Kline has read it, he probably thought it was a fantasy. Another literary echo is The Scarlet Letter.

For those who haven't seen the stories in the news, the Attorney General of Kansas is seeking complete health files of 90 women, "including sexual history, birth-control practices, medical history, notes of physical exams and psychological profiles." He does not claim to be seeking this information to investigate a particular crime - it is a fishing expedition so he can have agents visit these women and ask follow-up questions, armed with the most sensitive and private information imaginable.

Proof of Kline's bad faith is found in the fact that the clinics even offered to cooperate with him, but he refused their offer because it did not satisfy his sick lust for private information. "The clinics offered to present records with identifying information redacted. They argued that if Kline found evidence of a crime in a report, he could seek more information about that woman without exposing the identities of the others." The judge is clearly a kindred soul of Kline's - he has ignored the motion.

A further disturbing twist is that until the clinics asked the Kansas Supreme Court to intervene, this case was subject to a "gag order" - keeping it out of the eye of the public. It was initiated in the fall - and undoubtedly gagged because Kline knew that the right-wing kooks in Kansas, and perhaps the nation, would lose votes in the November elections if the American public saw just how insane, repressive and puritanical they are.

This is not Kline's first attempt to gain access to the sexual history of those who would not prefer to share it with him. A couple years ago, he had the great idea of having all health providers tell him about young girls who were sexually active. He lost that effort, so now he has to come up with another means of intruding into the lives of sexually active women.

I've never met Phill Kline, so I can only speculate into his motives. Clearly, there are enough legal issues in Kansas that he doesn't need to delve into these murky waters just to keep himself busy. In fact, he should probably be preparing his own defense for violating the Kansas Open Meetings law.

The man has demonstrated a pattern of trying to gain access to information about women's sexuality. Most people satisfy that kind of desire by getting drunk with a group of friends and swapping stories about their "first time" and so on. Apparently, nobody will get drunk with Phill Kline. Maybe, just maybe, if sexually active young women would call his number - (785) 296-2215 - and regale him with a bawdy tale or two, he could, umm, satisfy himself without having to go to court.

Tony's Kansas City

It's tough to say what motivates me to maintain this blog. It's certainly not fame, as I choose to remain at least slightly anonymous, to avoid backlash at work or elsewhere. ("Slightly anonymous" in that people could figure out my identity with a whole lot less effort than it took to figure out that the right wing's favorite reporter maintained gay porn web sites, but my full name doesn't show up on the site.) There's no money in it. It's taken time away from other hobbies.

Regardless, I get a kick out of posting my views and knowing that I am influencing millions of people across the world. (Well, I'm assuming that every person who reads this page goes on to tell a hundred thousand people or so about my views . . .) But the real thrill comes when you get a mention in Tony's Kansas City, as two of my last four postings have been honored. That's when you have to call the limo company and drink champagne while waving out the sun roof to passers-by on the Plaza. You're big time, and you have to enjoy the moment.

That said, the randomness gets to you after a while. Why does a four sentence discussion of right wing slimeballs warrant a mention, but not brilliant, ground-breaking work like "My Cock Can Beat Up Your Cock"? Why does my disgust with the Missouri Legislature's literary taste achieve fame, while my discussion of "noodling" went unmentioned?

Perhaps the randomness is the real genius of Tony's Kansas City. Like Miss Lois' magic mirror on Romper Room, you never know when your name will be called out. When it happens, you know it's a special day, and your aura shines a little brighter. When it doesn't, you tune in next time, and try not to get your hopes up.

Republican Slime Tactics

The rabid right is attacking the AARP because it doesn't support Bush's plans to reduce Social Security benefits. Rather than engaging in a debate on the merits (which they know they would lose), they have instead brought in the slime merchants who gave us the Swift Boat Veterans. This is the result.

The right wing needs to take a hard look at itself and think about what it stands for.

Estate Tax Repeal = Tax Break for Dead Millionaires

In a time when deficits are soaring, and when the gap between the haves and have-nots is growing to revolutionary proportions, it takes a man of rare idiocy (or commitment to millionaires) to argue in favor of extending a tax break that only touches dead millionaires, or the lazy swine that want to live off those dead millionaires instead of working. Missouri Congressman Kenny Hulshof is that rare idiot.

99% of this tax is paid by the richest 5% of the population, and it doesn't even apply to the first million unearned, undeserved, silver-spoon dollars going to next generation. The ONLY plausible reason to oppose the estate tax is the misguided thought that it could interfere with maintaining family farms and family businesses. When rational people offer to exempt such estates, though, Hulshof's supporters refuse to even consider it - "'Any kind of compromise plan is strictly off the table,' said Dena Battle." Why is she so firm on that point? Because the point is NOT to save family farms or small businesses, no matter how much they use them as cover. The point is to preserve privilege for the ultra-wealthy.

Republicans Embarrassing Missourians (at least those with taste)

Missouri has some claim to artistic excellence. In the realm of fiction, we can claim Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens, and Hemingway honed his craft at the Kansas City Star. In the visual arts, we have one of my favorites, Thomas Hart Benton, as well as George Caleb Bingham and many others. Musically speaking, Missouri nurtured world-changers, from Scott Joplin to Chuck Berry and from Count Basie to Nelly.

Of all the fields, though, poetry is probably the strongest. While he may have preferred to think of himself as English, T. S. Eliot was born and raised in St. Louis, as was the under-appreciated Sara Teasdale. Former poet laureate Howard Nemerov spent his best years in Missouri.

With so much great art, why is it that one of our idiot Republican legislators is proposing to have "Missouri, Just Waitin' For Me" named our state poem?

It's bad enough that the Republicans are taking medical care away from poor residents, and closing the courts to injured people. It's bad enough that they are rolling back our educational standards and serving as lapdogs to the insurance industry.

Those things are to be expected, after all - that's just what Republicans do. But, normally, they don't even claim to read or care about poetry. Why, then, must they submit Missouri to the indignity of claiming this to be our official state poem?

Missouri - Just Waitin' For Me

As I travel the highways and byways, and as I tramp the hills and wade the streams in Missouri, I sometimes stop and look around me and I think, "All of this, just waitin' for me."

As I hunt and fish in Missouri, I remember all of the ambitious people who have restored, cultivated, and preserved all the wildlife, and it is just waitin' for me.

Each change of season brings something anew in the fall, as in October when the forest leaves change to a blaze of a thousand colors, I say, "All of this, just waitin' for me."

I should hope when we, the older generation, turn the reins of Missouri over to a younger generation, that they too will work, educate, cultivate and preserve Missouri so their children can also, with pride and deep admiration, say, "All of this, just waitin' for me."

When I have come to my journey's end and have climbed the golden stairs and am standing face to face with the Master, may I be heard to proudly say, "Master, in this vast place called heaven, don't You have just a little place like Missouri, just waitin' for me?"

Cleaver's Mistake & False Equivalencies

This is one of those instances where I want to make excuses for Cleaver. Just after the Bush Administration got caught paying three (so far) columnists to support Bush's positions, Emanuel Cleaver has admitted that he paid a reporter covering his campaign for consulting work. It is beyond dispute that the reporter should not have accepted the money, and the Cleaver campaign should not have offered it. The appearance of impropriety is glaring, and should have been avoided.

That said, it is a mistake to link the Cleaver mistake to the Bush Administration's misbehavior, and write them off as equivalent. The Bush administration paid the columnists specifically to promote their agenda. Cleaver hired the worng person to write some telephone bank scripts and to advise on African-American media.

If anybody believes that The Kansas City Call needed to be paid to strongly support Cleaver, that person must be unaware of the history of The Call, which has been supporting black involvement in the political process since 1919.

Cleaver and Eric Wesson foolishly created the appearance of an impropriety. The Bush Administration, by bribing columnists to support its positions, created an actual impropriety.

Goodbye to a Friend

Bob Blesch was one of those guys I always considered a friend, even in the past few years where our interaction consisted of occasional holiday cards (he was a lot more dependable than me) and a few emails. He had moved to Phoenix, and only rarely came back to Kansas City. On Thursday, I found out he died.

He hadn't even told me that he had a rare form of blood cancer, diagnosed last year. Given the state of our correspondence, I'm not hugely surprised, and, knowing Bob, he figured he would have it beat, anyhow. No need to upset people.

Bob was the best "guy's guy" I've ever known. He was great at golf, fly fishing (his holiday card was always a new picture of him happily holding a huge trout in some western stream) - probably anything he set his mind to. He loved great books, and enjoyed discussing them in the book club Robin and I started. He had great musical taste - I wish now I had gone with him to catch Richard Thompson at the Grand Emporium. Virtually every female mutual friend carried a bit of a torch for Bob - I don't profess to be a good judge of this, but I'm told he was great-looking.

This might sound like odd praise, but the best round of golf I ever played was with Bob. We were at Blue River, back when it was a cow pasture enlivened by a few interesting holes, and Bob, as always, was beating me by at least a stroke a hole. But with Bob, it wasn't intense competition or anything like it - it was two guys out playing golf, each trying to find his "A" game. Bob was in his - I think it was one of his best rounds, too. And, in his calm, friendly presence, I found mine, too. Together, we hit long drives and drained our putts. I remember the 16th hole in particular - the hole went out into a narrow, lush valley, and the shadows from the tall trees stretched over the fairway. It was breath-taking, and we walked slowly and in silence, enjoying the moment.

Bob's dead now. I'll never again walk, or laugh, or talk with him. I'll miss him - he was a great guy, and I am richer for having had the opportunity to know him.

(In his obituary, I noticed it suggested that donations should go to the Whirling Disease Foundation. Never having heard of this disease, I checked out the website. It turns out that Whirling Disease affects trout - Bob's family is choosing to memorialize him by helping the trout he loved to chase. That's so right.)

Wow

Alberto Gonzales, John McCain, and the Rude Pundit.

Blunt Slams Citizens, Supports Companies that Kill Missourians

On Thursday, Matt Blunt saw fit to criticize Missourians who sat on a jury, listened to evidence, and decided that a fantastically profitable company should be punished a fraction of its net worth for killing a Missourian. Without hearing a word of the evidence brought to the trial, Matt Blunt decided that a twenty million dollar punitive damages award against a tobacco company "is an 'egregious' example of a court system in need of reform."

There are so many things wrong with Blunt's position that I need to address them separately.

1. The Blunt family is owned by Big Tobacco. Little Brother Andy Blunt gets paid big money to lobby for tobacco companies. His new step-mom is also in the family business of lobbying for tobacco companies. His Dad is so much in the pocket of Big Tobacco that he embarrassed even the shameless Republicans in Congress by trying to sneak a provision benefiting Big Tobacco into the Homeland Security Bill. In Blunt's world, the central "family value" is supporting big Tobacco. (By the way, why didn't the so-called "liberal press" even mention these ties to Big Tobacco in their coverage?)

2. Blunt does not know the evidence. A jury reaches its verdict based upon the evidence put before it. Matt Blunt did not hear the evidence that the jury heard. He did not read the documents put before it, demonstrating that Brown & Williamson knew that the product it was selling would addict Ms. Smith and subject her to a slow, painful death. He did not see the evidence that Brown & Williamson actively suppressed that information during the time that Ms. Smith was getting hooked. He did not see the evidence about how many millions upon millions of dollars Brown & Williamson was able to "earn" by deceiving Ms. Smith and others about the health effects of their product. All Blunt knows is that the industry that bankrolls his family just got brought to justice in Kansas City.

3. The case isn't over. Post-trial motions have not been heard. The appellate courts have not looked at the case. Even if the verdict does become final, half the money will be diverted to a Tort Victims Compensation Fund. People who confuse a jury verdict with an ultimate result do not understand our court system.

4. Why does Matt Blunt think juries are only wrong when they punish corporations? Republicans are tremendous supporters of the jury system when it involves putting black teenagers to death. They have attacked appellate judges that dare to look at trial error in cases where lives, instead of money, are at stake. They are working hard to restrict Missouri citizens serving on juries from imposing money damages on corporations, but they are happy to allow jurors to send the poor and undereducated to the gas chamber when they are accused of hurting one person, rather than millions.
__________

Matt Blunt isn't just wrong this time, he is an ignorant hypocrite blinded by the blood money Big Tobacco has paid to his avaricious clan. Matt Blunt did not have a negative word to say when Ms. Smith died of heart disease brought on by the Big Tobacco corporations that bankroll his family. He didn't attend her funeral. He didn't mourn her passing. But he stands ready to call it "egregious" when his corporate pals are called to account for her death.

Ms. Smith was a Missouri citizen. Her fellow citizens sat on a jury and reached a verdict based on the evidence they heard. Matt Blunt's criticism demonstrates that he values Big Tobacco more than the citizens he mocks.

Brush Creek Follies

For 14 years, a radio program called the "Brush Creek Follies" held the number-two spot among rural music programs, second only to the "National Barn Dance" on Chicago's WLS. Before the Grand Ole Opry was a hit, radio listeners tuned to KMBC here in Kansas City, to catch their fill of "hillbilly," "cowboy," "rural," or "traditional" ("country and western" wasn't commonly used until the '40s) music.

I didn't know about that, did you? Go listen, and step back in time.

Iraqi Voting

It makes for such a nice picture, all those Iraqis showing off their ink stains, demonstrating that they voted. Unfortunately, the real picture is just a little more complex than the Bush administration would have us believe:

Iraq's interim president said Tuesday that tens of thousands of people may have been unable to vote in the country's historic weekend election because some polling places — including those in Sunni Arab areas — ran out of ballots.

As clerks pounded vote-count tallies into computers to compile final results, President Ghazi al-Yawer also said chaos and a power vacuum in Iraq mean U.S. forces need to stay for now, even though a new government will be formed after the results are known.

If this is what our hand-picked puppet is saying, how do you think it is being spun by the insurgents?

Guest Writer on SS "Crisis"

The following analysis is not my work. It was sent by an anonymous local lawyer who has always prided himself on being independent, and his approach to most issues is to apply logic and facts. In this instance, he has done an exemplary job of addressing the Bush Administration's Social Security "Crisis":

In my initial foray into this issue, I expressed a desire that we look at the facts. Obviously, that is not going to be the case. Since my earlier post I've seen speeches by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Senator Kennedy and others as well as numerous panels, columns, etc. all of which make it clear that facts will have precious little to do with this discussion.

In the process I have been convinced that I made a significant error in my initial post. That error has to do with the Social Security Trust Fund. In my earlier post I misunderstood the nature of the Trust Fund. I had bought into the propaganda that it consisted of "worthless IOU's". Turns out if the Trust Fund is holding "worthless IOU's", then so are almost all of our government's lenders. The assets of the Trust Fund are US Treasury Bonds, the most secure investment in the world for some time now. These are the same instruments that are held by foreign reserve banks and foreign governments. In this time when we need to continue to borrow from foreign investors to cover our growing federal budget deficit, it seems rather stupid for us to be telling lenders that their loans to the government are worthless. A default on any of these bonds, including those held by the SS Trust Fund would make ours a
third world economy.

The consensus seems to be that until 2018, SS taxes will continue to generate a surplus of revenues over benefit payments. For all the concern about there being two workers for every retiree at some point in the future, the fact is we are presently generating a surplus of SS revenues over benefits with three workers for every retiree. While it may seem logical to be concerned about the worker/retiree ratio, one really needs to do the math and not look just at the ratio. The ratio affects the math, but not nearly to the extent one might assume without looking at the actual numbers. When SS was "saved" in 1983, the two to one ratio was anticipated and was dealt with in the creation of the trust fund.

If it is correct that in 2018 benefits will begin to exceed SS revenues and start drawing on the Trust Fund, that is not a crisis. It is in fact what was contemplated when we "saved" SS in 1983. It was part of the plan that was sold to the public at that time. If the Greenspan committee's 1983 projects had been accurate, we would perhaps not be having the present discussion. Those projections proved to be a little off. The primary wrong assumption was the rate of wage increases. If actual wage increases had matched the assumptions, SS would have been funded to the infinite horizon, in perpetuity, forever. The worker/retiree ratio was not a problem.

We now have revised projections. Nevertheless the original plan is working pretty well. It always included using the Trust Fund, US Treasury Bonds, to cash flow the benefits. This method of saving SS was the reason the 1983 SS "Reform" and corresponding SS tax increase was approved on a bipartisan basis. Some would argue that the real reason for the SS tax increase was to provide the government with a source of revenue to offset the tax breaks given to the wealthy. The SS tax increase, on the low and middle income Americans, resulted in an immediate SS surplus. A fund was created from which the government could borrow funds needed in the face of a growing deficit created by the tax cuts for the "wealthy." Reagan wanted to privatize SS but had to go for the borrowed funds in view of the defect.

If using the Trust Fund was such a good idea in 1983, why is it such a bad deal now? Is it because the government has already spent the surplus collected to date, and now they don't want to pay it back? Of course they are continuing to get the SS surplus for some time yet, at least until 2018. They got and continue to get cold, hard taxpayer cash that they are borrowing, so why shouldn't they pay it back? They have to pay back all the other lenders. If they don't, SS will be the least of our problems.

It is not a fact; it is a projection, that in 2042, according to SS Trust Fund, or 2052 according to the Congressional Budget Office, we will have exhausted the Trust Fund. Both projections are fairly conservative, especially the Trust Fund's. If either model were applied using the Administration's economic assumptions, the above dates would be extended, perhaps indefinitely. A key element of the assumptions is life expectancy. We already know that life expectancy is not increasing at the rate assumed in the projections. As a result all of the projected dates would be extended using real life expectancy experience. As medical costs continue their double-digit inflation rate, it is likely that the original projections of life expectancy will prove to be even higher than reality.

The Administration says that in forty years SS will be "flat broke." I guess it has a different meaning than I would normally use. If we do nothing, in forty years SS will still be able to pay 70% to 75% of presently committed benefits. I wouldn't say that was "flat broke." In fact it is better than retirees will receive under the Administration's privatization proposal, as will be shown below.

The Administration also says the system will be "bankrupt" in 40 years. To the extent that commitments exceeding tax revenues constitutes bankruptcy, then perhaps that is a correct statement. That hardly seems to qualify as a "crisis." If a potential bankruptcy of a portion of the government forty years from now is a "crisis", then I fail to understand why the Administration isn't more concerned about an even bigger crisis that exists today. Today the entire government is bankrupt using the definition Bush applied to SS. Today our expenses exceed tax revenues resulting in a huge and growing deficit that is partly financed by borrowing the SS surplus and selling "worthless IOU's" to foreign governments and others.

I have no objection to addressing a possible, perhaps likely, shortfall in SS forty or fifty years from now. However, regardless of what we might do today, or if we do nothing, We will be addressing SS issues again much sooner than forty or fifty years. It is less than twenty years since we last saved SS. At present the x-trillion dollar shortfall predicted is primarily between 75 years from now and infinity. I confess not to be too worried about specific projections for that period of time. It is fairly certain that such projections will change long before we get there. I'm not even sure that as we approach infinity that a trillion dollars will even buy a cup of coffee. The x-trillion dollar shortfall that far out is mostly a scare tactic with little impact on the reality with which we will then be dealing.

It would be wonderful if the attention being paid to retirement security were broadened to include the real areas of concern. Retirement is often viewed as three-legged stool. The three legs being SS, retirement plans, and personal savings. SS is by far the strongest and most secure of the three.

The retirement plan leg includes pension plans as well as 401K's, IRA's and similar investment plans. Actual pensions are a declining factor and have been largely replaced by 401K's. In addition the Pension Guaranty Fund is broke, if we are worrying about bankrupt government entities. Only 20% of workers have access to 401K's, and a majority of those have relatively little invested in their 401K's. IRA's have been viewed primarily as a way to achieve immediate (and with Roth's
subsequent) income tax relief. Few seem to truly use them to plan retirement. The average 55 to 59 yearold only has about $40,000 in their IRA's, etc. Clearly most of their retirement income will be from SS. The retirement plan leg is a very weak leg of the retirement stool.

These are privatized accounts. That is no guarantee of success. Enron. WorldCom. One WorldCom employee of over twenty years at one time had an account valued at over $1,000,000 and ultimately had the account cashed out with a $500 check. Many private pensions did no better. Employers in many cases raided the pension funds and ultimately left them severely underfunded. The reason the Pension Guaranty Fund is broke.

Major Wall Street industries (insurance, brokers, mutual funds), have all come under attack for corruption. These are the same industries that would be the caretakers of the SS private accounts. Not very comforting. Not withstanding the corruption, most of us need to be investing more in our retirement accounts, though perhaps with greater attention to those investments.

But, it gets worse. The third leg is personal savings. The US savings rate is one of the lowest of industrialized nations. Our current average rate is 0.002%. Yes the decimal is in the right place. That means an average family with an income of $40,000 saves $80.00 per year. That's not going to make for much of a retirement.

I don't have the stats in front of me but something like 70% of retirees depend on SS for about 70% of their income. I don't believe it was ever intended, not should it be intended now, that SS would be the primary vehicle of retirement.

We should definitely be paying attention to the retirement situation, but SS is not the issue of concern in the overall picture. It would be wonderful if we considered the other larger and more difficult problems facing retirees, but I doubt either party will do so. "Fixing" SS is relatively easy and there are numerous and relatively painless ways to do so. For those favoring a tax increase, there are still a number of possibilities. One would not even be a tax on income, but a tax on
estates over $7,000,000. Simply increasing the SS tax would only involve an increase of less than 1% on employees and less than 1% on employers. While there is opposition to any tax increase it is clear that such an SS tax increase would not impose the burden implied by those harping about the two workers to one retiree ratio. The reality is in the $ not the ratio.

In spite of some of the bad experience with savings, pensions and 401K's, I believe in private accounts. We need more of them. We just don't need them as part of the SS system. Those who want the higher returns that are supposed to follow higher risk should make such investments. Actually we should all do so, but not with SS taxes. Investment risk is not supposed to be part of the SS system.

The Administration's fabricated crisis, naturally has a fabricated solution. The Administration's is to privatize at least a portion of our SS taxes. At least initially participation is supposed to be voluntary. While we don't have much in the way of detail on the Admin's proposal, there has been mention of 25% of SS tax being allowed into private accounts.

There are those who think they can invest their money better than SS. That's an apples and hocky pucks comparison. SS is not an investment. It is a tax combined with certain commitments from SS. Dollars paid in SS tax go primarily to SS beneficiaries that include more than retirees. The government borrows the surplus. That is required. There is no option of investing the money otherwise.

Nevertheless, proponantes of privatization attempt to compare "returns" on SS with other return options. In Cheney's speech on SS he compared some returns, including average stock market returns, with the 2% return on the SS Trust Fund's US Treasury Bonds. There are major problems with those comparisons.

First the 2% return on the Bonds has nothing to do with the SS benefits a retiree receives. If you want to call the benefit payments "returns", the typical "return" is substantially better than 2%. A retiree's "return" depends on a number of factors and is not the same for all retirees. One needs to do some calculations that start with a visit to the SSA.gov website.

The second problem is that the touted returns for private accounts are exaggerated. Some like to say the average stock market return is 9% when it is really about 6% since 1871. These are gross returns, before admin fees, commissions and other costs, and the SS "return" is net. The Congressional Budget Office projects a return of 4.9% after inflation and expenses. The Market has done worse than 3% in nine different 20-year periods.

A third problem is applying Market return rates to the entire private account. In almost all cases the account will include only a portion invested in the market with other portions invested in more conservative investments.

No doubt some investors would do better in a private account than they will under SS, but not the average investor.

There generally seems to be an assumption in this country that if a foreign industrialized nation is doing something differently than us, our way is superior. Strangely, when it comes to privatizing retirement accounts, we seem to want to adopt a foreign system, even when it has failed.

Britain has 20 years experience with privatization. Britain's problems include lower than anticipated returns, higher than anticipated administrative expenses (20% to 30%) and major fraud by investment advisers. In a fraud by insurance companies where they had sold misrepresented policies the government was forced to pay out $20 billion.

The Bush proposal is modeled after the system attempted by Argentina. It also has failed in large part. Almost half of the covered workers in Argentina now decline to participate in the voluntary private accounts.

In view of the fiscal reality, it should be clear that privatizing SS should not be the Administration's number one priority. Whatever potential future problem may face SS, there is no present crisis. Some supporters of privatization have admitted that their true objective is to eliminate all "entitlements" beginning with SS. Such an objective is purely ideological and the topic may be appropriate for debate, but it should be an honest debate that does not try to create a phony crisis as its basis. Unfortunately, millions of our tax dollars will be spent in a propaganda effort to persuade the public that a crisis exists.