Here's an excerpt from one of the most inspired articles I've read on Bush's Social Security plan:
Was Bush's Social Security Plan Inspired by National Lampoon? by "the Angry Liberal."
Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security has nothing to do with saving the system. Upon close examination, the basic concept is unbelievably stupid.
The author's brilliant insights on Bush, Social Security, using the elderly as human shields for corporations, and, yes, National Lampoon below the fold.
Instead of collecting taxes from rich people and corporations, the government borrows those same dollars. Then it gives the borrowed dollars right back to the very people they borrowed them from in exchange for some of their stock certificates. At the end of this transaction, the rich investors have a guaranteed income from their investment in government debt, while the disabled and retired have a pile of paper, formerly owned by the rich investors and corporations, that is worth whatever those same investors feel like paying for it. Since the value of the private investments will be set by these investors, Enron-style corporate manipulation of this system will abound. Honestly, is there anybody in America who really thinks that Enron stock wouldn't have been part of private portfolios if these dumb retirement accounts had existed ten years ago?
Yes, he's right. Many dollars would be put in companies just like Enron and WorldCom.
With Republicans controlling both Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, regulators could use the retirement accounts as financial dumping grounds, sending all kinds of artificially overvalued stocks into our portfolios in exchange for campaign contributions. Instead of seeing a bunch of Enron employees crying about the demise of that corporation a few years ago, we could have seen disabled and senior citizens across America crawling through dumpsters as their privatized Social Security income dried up.
Now he gets into Bush's true underlying motivation, which is the brilliance of this piece and is something I hadn't thought of or seen elsewhere.
This brings us to the real reason for Bush's obsession with this program. A few years ago, much was made of the "cowardice" of Saddam Hussein during the runup to the war. He was accused of using Iraqis as human shields, placing large numbers of citizens around military targets and moving the military targets to civilian areas. Only a miserable coward, it was said, would endanger the lives of his nation's citizens in order to protect himself.
Folks, the privatization of Social Security would use America's most vulnerable as human shields for Corporate America. By forcing the very survival of retirees to depend on corporate profits, Bush and the Republicans would force future generations to guarantee those corporate profits. Any time legislation would be considered that could negatively impact an industry's profits, Republicans would drag out Granny, who would tearfully testify to Congress that she would starve if either of her two shares of Engulf & Devour, Inc. paid smaller dividends. The fat cats who make millions from stock ownership would quietly use Granny as a human shield, knowing that Americans would never stand still while her meager retirement income was cut. And since Granny and the fat cats would get their income from the same stream, the income of the fat cats would never be cut, either.
Would you like to breathe cleaner air? Forget it. The investment required by factories would cut profits and force Uncle Ted to give up meat on Wednesdays. How about increasing the fuel efficiency of automobiles? Not a chance. GM is too heavily dependant on SUV profits, and a slump in those sales would mean that Aunt Frieda would have to switch from canned cat food to dry cat food. And she doesn't even own a cat. Grandpa can't afford to raise the minimum wage. The old lady across the street can't afford to install new equipment to prevent repetitive motion injuries. That quiet neighbor kid whose father was killed in Bush's war can't afford a cut in old-growth logging. And nobody at the old folks' home could possibly survive a military downsizing. Ladies and gentlemen, the driving force behind Social Security privatization is loosely based on the famous National Lampoon Magazine cover: If you don't buy the corporate line, we'll kill this old lady. That is the real motivation behind the Republicans' desperate attempt to sell this program to America. And the Democrats aren't even talking about it.
What the author says here and in the rest of the article makes a lot of sense. [Note: I added a couple paragraph breaks to make it easier to read in the narrow gray box.]