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

Silver Spring, MD (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 http://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 http://www.SocialSecurityBullshit.com.

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