The Finance Industry Rallies Around Rude Gestures Made to AARP--and they call this a dialogue (sheesh)

Yesterday, Huffington has a Post about former Wyoming Senator and co-chair of Obama's deficit commission, Alan Simpson's pro-finance industry/anti-Social Security rally hosted by an event hosted by the Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund manager. I imagine the hosts would not characterize their event as a rally, but what do you call it when the speaker makes rude gestures at groups trying to defend seniors' benefits and people in the audience laugh and say things like "Hurray!"? Simpson was there to rally the base, not to have any intelligent discussion about Social Security.

Of course, the finance industry wants to privatize Social Security so they can charge investment fees on the pittances of poor seniors.

Previously, Simpson has sat down to criticized Social Security in the calmer forum of C-Span (video at the HP link). Simpson claims Social Security is out of date, for both actuarial reasons and historical. He says that the creators of Social Security failed to take life expectancy into account and that it was never intended as a retirement program. The problem is that he's wrong on both counts. Digby explain pretty well here. C&L adds its point of view here asking a very important question for Illinoisans: 

Why is Dick Durbin acting like a beard for these people? Simpson is an old hack, but Durbin should be ashamed of himself because he does know the truth and the figures that we're talking about here.

I want to talk about the other side of this argument. Simpson was criticizing and rude gesturing toward AARP which has been Social Security since this past spring with it's campaign called "Keep Social Security Strong". AARP is hoping to preserve the basic structure of Social Security with a few changes to make sure benefits will not go down, and will be adjusted upward for inflation. They don't specify what those changes would be, but they are clear that AARP does not support privatization and does not support the theme in  Congress that it's ok to promise current seniors their benefits on the backs of future seniors, their children, grandchildren and so on.

AARP further debunks another theme coming from Republicans and other financiers who want Social Security in their hands, that Social Security doesn't really matter to seniors. On the contrary, AARP points out that "On average, an individual would have to save an additional $300,000 while working to replace the benefits Social Security provides in retirement." $300,000 is an important number in retirement planning because economists say you need about that to be able to withdraw $12,000 per year for your savings. The prior link also instructs:

If you have $150,000 in retirement savings earning 7 percent, it will take 10 years for it to grow to $300,000, 20 years to get to $600,000 and 30 years to reach $1.2 million - enough for $4,000 in monthly income. Of course, you'd reach your goal faster by adding new savings to the mix.

That, of course, says nothing about what happens when the stock market goest kaput because unregulated bankers forget not to commit fraud.

AARP looks to Social Security as a prong in a three prong plan for retirement also including personal savings and pensions. Most people don't even have a hope of getting a pension anymore, so the three legged stool of retirement is already pretty shaky. If those who want to cut Medicare and Medicaid get their way the entire system breaks down because seniors will be broke paying medical and long term care bills.

AARP's spring ad can be viewed here. I like it because it talks about the future of young people, getting away from the notion that saving Social Security is just for current seniors. Here's it's newer ad mentioning Social Security and Medicare:



AARP is somewhat incorrect on one point in the ad. They say the cuts are being suggested to help Washington pay it's bills. That's true from a certain point of view, but ignores that the bills have accumulated because of two three wars and lots of tax breaks and cuts for multinational corporations.