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Another anti-capitalist, anti-free-market, business ignoramus for universal health care. Self-made billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman.
With each passing month, the case against some form of universal health insurance, which is generally made by elected politicians and economists and policy analysts who reside in universities and think tanks -- which is to say, non-profit employees who generally enjoy gold-plated benefits, frequently at the expense of taxpayers -- becomes less tenable.
Posted by dan at 12:54 PM
There they go again. As part of its continuing effort to make it seem as if American workers are actually prospering in an era in which median income is still below what it was in 2000, the Wall Street Journal editorial page trots out some misleading averages. If Goldman, Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein gets a $54 million bonus, and 53,999,999 other workers get nothing, then on average, 54 million people have received a $1 bonus. In reality, however, only one person has more money in his pocket. Crudely speaking, that's what has been happening in the U.S. economy. The Journal's editorial page would like us to think otherwise. Some key snippets:
Over the past year, the real average wage for non-supervisory employees has risen 2.8%. That equates to about a $1,200 increase in purchasing power for the typical household this year. Last year, real median household income was also up 1.1% after inflation. This rise in take-home pay helps to explain how Americans have had the disposable income this Christmas shopping season to pay $600 for Play Station 3 computer games and $150 for the Kid-Tough Digital Camera for three-year-olds.
Got that? Average real wages rose 2.8 percent over the past year, while real median household income, which more accurately captures the experience of typical Americans, rose 1.1 percent.
Later, the editorial argues that the best way to boost the stagnant income of workers is to. . . . .cut taxes.
We certainly agree with those who'd like to do more to lift worker paychecks, so here are two ideas. First, make the Bush tax cuts permanent. If Congress lets them expire in 2010, as many Democrats are urging, the average family will suffer the equivalent of a $2,000 a year pay cut.
Again, not the use of the average. It may be true that letting the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, as they were designed to do, might result in families, on average, paying $2,000 a year more in taxes. But for the median family, the sum would surely be less. Again, if Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman, Sachs pays an extra $1.62 million in taxes as a result of top marginal rates rising, and 1,619,999 other workers continue to pay taxes at the same rate, then on average, their taxes have risen by $1. But only one person is paying more taxes. Sigh.
Posted by dan at 08:39 AM
Remember the vaunted Chilean privatized social security-type scheme that had people like New York Times columnist John Tierney and President Bush so excited? It turns out it's not working as advertised, and the Chilean people are now choosing a different path.
Larry Rohter reports in the New York Times:
SANTIAGO, Chile, Dec. 19 — Responding to growing complaints that the privatized pension system here is failing to deliver adequate benefits, the Chilean government has recommended that it be supplanted by a system in which the state would play a much larger role. The current system is a favorite of free-enterprise enthusiasts, including President Bush.The changes, part of a reform package scheduled to go to Congress early next year, include a guaranteed minimum pension for the country’s poorest citizens, even those who have never contributed to the private system.
The proposal also contains measures meant to stimulate competition, reducing the high costs to contributors and the extraordinarily high profits for pension fund administrators that analysts blame for some of the current problems. . . .
In recent years, that pioneering privatized system has been emulated by a score of other countries and praised by leaders of many others. Mr. Bush, for example, proposed using the Chilean model as the basis for a reshaping of Social Security, calling the system here “a great example” and saying the United States could “take some lessons from Chile.”
But dissatisfaction with the inability of the system to provide the benefits promised when Gen. Augusto Pinochet imposed it in 1981 has been rising, and became an issue in this year’s presidential campaign.
As things now stand, about half the Chileans in the labor force will not qualify for a pension or will receive only a minimum payment, for a variety of reasons that include their not having paid into the system for the minimum 20 years.
“There are a whole set of problems, strongly linked to a system that had certain presuppositions that have not come true,” President Michelle Bachelet said in an interview in June. “People retire and find that they are entitled to a pension that is between 30 and 50 percent of their wages, and not the 70 percent they were promised.”
Posted by dan at 07:56 AM