Thursday, April 12, 2012

Social Security's convenient political myths.

I ran into a wall on the comment boards on Bloomberg's site, over the oft repeated fallacies over Social Security.  I profess, two decades ago I actually understood the issues the same way the media currently sees it...but I was wrong.

Since then, I have spent much time researching various economic (and other) topics, and for the past 6 years, understood that the media generally gets it wrong (on many topics, not just economics).  Part of the purpose of this blog, is to force me to research and report back my findings, as a means to increase my analytic skills and understanding of the world.

You see, these fallacies are political myths that were created to allow the opposition party to create populist friction against a sitting President of the opposite party.  Democrats used it against Republicans, and Republicans now use it against Democrats.  And at some point the myths became so entrenched that the media accepted them as facts.

Anyway... in responding to a misinformed poster tonight, I found a great Media Matters research entry on common Social Security fallacies which the media (and some fatuous talking heads) have oft repeated -- I strongly urge everyone to read it.

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