The Wall Street Journal followed upon my "Diet COLA" post from several days back on the prospects for a Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment this year. The Journal's editors said: AARP and other self-styled senior lobbies are raising a ruckus over the news that in 2010, for the first time in 35 years, Social Security recipients won't be getting a cost of living increase in their monthly checks. Members of Congress are calling for an investigation into the way COLAs are calculated. But the only real scandal here is the opposite of what Congress, the press and AARP are moaning about. The recent fall in prices has served up a windfall for seniors and a real $600 average increase in their Social Security payments this year. The Journal piece is available here.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wall Street Journal on the Social Security Diet COLA
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3 comments:
The real scandal is that the Greatest Generation and the War Babies who grew up during the Depression are now dragging down an extra $25 per month? As Welch put it some 50 plus years ago: "after all this have you no more shame?"
Social Security Retirees got one time lucky, they got a COLA not exactly related to the exact underlying core inflation numbers. And a whe bunch of traders got ultra wealthy betting on an asset inflation not supported by subsequent asset prices in housing. And you present my Mom getting an extra $20 a month as a 'scandal' while passing off millions of dollars in what turned out to be what were unearned bonuses on what turned out to be huge investor losses just being a 'shit happens and keep our compensation coming' moment is almost obscene.
Lots of people got their compensation set by expected numbers before the crash. That retirees hit a sweet spot much as traders in MBSs did is called a scandal just shows some of you have no moral center whatsoever.
Got forbid that elderly retirees get a break and Wall Street 30 somethings still get their contractual piece of the smaller than expected pie. Compensation for both were set under rules in place, the insistance that only one party is guilty is blindness to equity and reality.
The real scandal is that the Greatest Generation and the War Babies who grew up during the Depression are now dragging down an extra $25 per month?
Bruce: Just for the record, those "who grew up during the Depression" and the Greatest Generation who Fought World War II are mostly gone now ... my father was one of them and he passed a couple years ago at 86.
Now we're into the Elvis babies and those whose motto was "Sex, drugs, and rock and roll!" as they spent their 20s and 30s in the 1960s.
It's time to update the rhetoric!
Bruce,
I haven't argued that we should take back the above-inflation payment for this year, merely that seniors don't need an extra payment on top of that.
Andrew
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