Written by Jonathan Weisman, the article should have been titled "Four Berths on the Ship of Fools" since it dealt with things that have little or nothing to do with Social Security's real problem, the government itself—a government that steals the surplus and gives us debt in return.

Relatively easy and inexpensive to solve, until this problem is addressed by someone, we are not going to get anywhere. Until the government either stops collecting the surplus by reducing payroll taxes or invest it properly we are dead in the water. And how much would it cost to set up a real trust fund in the private sector and give the trustees latitude to invest anywhere except in securities that must be redeemed by the beneficiaries themselves? We have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Still, there is every reason to believe that this real problem will never be addressed. (see "Stall; the name of the game")

The USA Today article may be read in its unedited entirety at: http://www.get-tuff.com/Breaking/ Sept-01/br-22.html

Let's take a look at the four options you are given for a cruise on 'The Ship of Fools."

a) Privatization: The article portrays people in this category as a bunch of nitwits who want to throw hundreds of billions per year into the New York Stock Exchange and the pockets of Wall Street brokers.

Now really, who in their right minds feels that investing huge sums of money in stocks somebody else already owns is a good investment or helps the economy and corporations directly? Forget the fact that Social Security could own its own seat on the "Exchange" and ask yourself why we should do it when loans could be made directly to companies and other nations. And look at all the other places to invest large sums of money.

As Allan Sloan of Newsweek points out, the government is already in the real estate business with its Ginnie Maes holding mortgages for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Social Security could probably hold every single family home mortgage in the country.

And don't think that Alan Greenspeak and the establishment don't see this coming, spurring them to keep things on the childish level of the USA Today article.

Once Social Security's surpluses were in large loans and mortgages, wouldn't it already be handling two of the major functions of banks? What's to keep it from becoming one of, if not the largest bank in the country? And where would that put the Federal Reserve?

b) The Tinkerers: USA Today defines this group as "left-of-center" economists and the Democratic establishment who now "contend that a series of small tweaks would solve (Social Security's) long-term financial problems and that fundamental changes aren't necessary." Which should put them in his last #c "do nothing" category. And aren't these the same people who brought us the "baby-boomer" scare story?

Wow, what's new? The Social Security Administration has been "tweaking" for ages—see chart, and while you're there, take a look at how much the many people paying into the system during the Fifties were really taking out of their paychecks.

Is this what we should get for our money??? Are we supposed to sit back and be happy with more "tweaks" and adjustments that add up to nothing more than cuts in benefits or paying more in payroll taxes. What about the $4.5 trillion surplus coming in during the next ten years, and expected extension of the $1.160 trillion in debt already held by the Social Security Trust Fund? All the result of extra money out of our sweat equity, plus interest added at no cost to the pirates.

Somebody should tell this group of charlatans to stick-it.

c) The Compromisers: This category is somewhat crazy and I don't think it's resolved

in Mr. Weisman's mind. He refers almost entirely to a proposal by E. Clay Shaw and Bill Archer to leave Social Security alone (much like the next section) but to have the government somehow set aside 2 percent of every workers salary in some sort of fund that would later be tapped by the retiring worker. There's no mention of where this two percent comes from or whether it's just more junk bonds put in a trust fund. Neither is there any mention of investment. What is supposedly proposed is that, once the worker retires, he will get either regular Social Security checks he's been paying for, or if the two percent fund is larger, then he will get this instead of his normal Social Security. Should he die before its exhausted, then the Treasury gets the balance, not his heirs. Mr. Weisman ends this section by telling us that the idea has been shelved anyway.

d) The Do-Nothings: This group is closest to the truth that the Social Security Administration does not need fixing and is not in trouble—except for their enormous profits that are consistently stolen as fast as they come in. The latter fact is not mentioned however. Mr. Weisman relies heavily on Dean Baker, co-author of the book "Social Security: The Phony Crisis" but doesn't plug Mr. Baker's book, just takes some of the facts from it. The book, co-authored with Mark Weisbrot, is a very good economist's look into the operation of Social Security. And it accepts the "baby-boomer" fallacy at face value while still maintaining that there is no problem.

All in all, about the best you can say for this article is that the graphics are beautiful and it's nice to see the issue finally hitting the front pages. Maybe, some day the truth will win out.