Friday, February 25, 2005
This Didn't Surprise Me In The Least
Josh Marshall reports that one of the Social Security Trustees has been bought off by the Bushies. Coming on top of the news that Bush made SSA spend 1.8 million dollars to pimp privatization, this shouldn't surprise anyone. Though really, the trustees have probably been in the privatizers' hip pocket for years. Just consider how unrealistically pessimistic -- and inaccurate -- the trustees' predictions have turned out to be:
... David Langer, an independent actuary who made a study of Social Security's previous projections compared with the actual results in 2003, thinks the ''optimistic'' case is its most accurate. Over a recent 10-year span, the trustees' intermediate guesses turned out to be quite pessimistic. Its optimistic guesses were dead on, and its pessimistic case -- sort of a doomsday situation -- was wildly inaccurate. And, contrary to widespread belief, recent demographic trends have been modestly better (from an actuary's gloomy standpoint) than anticipated. For instance, longevity hasn't increased as much as expected. Partly as a result, since 1997 the agency has pushed back, by 13 years, the date at which it projects its reserves will be exhausted. In other words, as the cries of impending doom started to crescendo, the guardians of the system have grown more optimistic.
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