Social Security Bullshit: A Socratic Discussion with a Texas Cowboy at McDonald’s, by Steve Baba, Ph.D.

Using non-technical language and a dialogue format, this short, free ebook explains the problems with social security privatization and misleading privatization arguments. Logical fallacies and economic concepts are presented in a Socratic discussion. Steve Baba, the author, has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park and has taught economics in the United States, Europe and Asia.

(PRWEB) February 21, 2006 -- Social Security Bullshit: A Socratic Discussion with a Texas Cowboy at McDonald’s, by Steve Baba, Ph.D.

Using non-technical language and a dialogue format, this short, free ebook explains the problems with social security privatization and misleading privatization arguments. Logical fallacies and economic concepts are presented in a Socratic discussion.

Steve Baba, the author, has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park and has taught economics in the United States, Europe and Asia.

The FREE eBook can be read online at www.SocialSecurityBullShit.com and covers the following topics:

– Introduction – Family Values and Paris Hilton
– Free money for families and claim the moral high ground of family values.
– Transition Costs – Paying Double
– The cost of risk
– African-Americans and the cost of annuities – The insurance company’s cut.
– What if we don’t require people to buy annuities?
– Throw Yourself From the Train at 64 and your family can inherit.
– All or Nothing Fallacy: Privatization or Bankruptcy
– False Analogies
– The false analogy that what is good for an individual is good for everyone: The Fallacy of Composition
– Free Lunch – Just eliminate wasteful government programs.
– If wasteful government spending could be cut, it could also be cut to save the current Social Security system.
– Corporate bonds and starving the beast (government)
– Let’s All Get Rich in the Stock Market
– Diminishing Marginal Productivity: Diminishing Profits
– Regression to the mean and other hazards of using past trends.
– Money is a veil.
– You can save money, but you can’t save most goods. You can’t carry your retirement on your back to avoid burdening future generations.
– Aliens (foreigners, not space aliens) will buy our stock and produce our goods
– Appeals to Authority and Personal Attacks
– Present only selective facts. Half the story.
– The magic of compound interest is not interest and is not magic.
– Less Government is Better Generalization
– More Choice is Better Generalization
– Choice has more search costs
– Using charts to make Social Security look bankrupt.
– Big Scary Numbers
– Privatization is always better generalization. Privatize the entire government?
– Individuals make better investment decisions than government: requires separation of government (social security) and stock market.
– The externality of having your mother-in-law live with you.
– Gaming the System and Bailing Out the Stock Market Losers
– Ownership with no insurance discourages entrepreneurial risk taking.
– Growing our way out of the problem.
– Taxophobia
– You have no legal rights to Social Security. Scare Tactics
– Leave if you want – but guarantee you won’t be a burden. The Slippery Slope.
– Leave if you want – but pay your share of the transition costs before you leave.
– The use and misuse of polls. Everyone wants more for less.
– The use and misuse of opinions and forecasts: trying to have it both ways
– The Current Social Security System: the worst system except for all others?
– Ten Point Summary

Read the entire eBook for free today at www.SocialSecurityBullshit.com.

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