What passes for Very Serious commentary on the Left - I've been looking for the "next page" button or "more" on this
Crooks & Liars post in response to this ABC News story "
Baby boomers expected to drain Medicare." But instead it just cries out "pay attention to the lies" without isolating, much less refuting, a single one. The comments are about what you expect from the "reality based community" including sneering at Diane Sawyer and the requisite hatred for the GOP.
3 comments:
Would this be Enough Seriousness as commentary? William Greider isn't the ideal punching-bag cartoon liberal, but he'll have to do.
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/social_security_in_perspective_part_iii.php?page=all
Trudy Lieberman: Let’s go back and put all this in the context of the press coverage of Social Security. What should the press be reporting that they haven’t been?
William Greider: Opponents of Social Security are deliberately confusing Social Security with Medicare; they are distorting reality. There are simple facts that should be reported: 1) Social Security never contributed a dime to the deficit; 2) Social Security softened the impact of the Reagan deficits by building up a surplus; 3) the federal government borrowed the money and spent it on other things; 4) the federal government has to pay this money back because it really belongs to the working people who paid their FICA deductions every pay day. The elites in both parties know the day is approaching when the federal government has to come up with the trillions it borrowed from the workers. That is the crisis the politicians don’t want to deal with, so they create a phony argument that slyly blames working people for their problem. That’s the propaganda they want the public to believe.
TL: What are the facts about Medicare that they should be reporting?
WG: Medicare is separate and in serious financial trouble for two basic reasons driving up costs. First, thanks to medical advances and the effective public health system, our aging population gets to live steadily longer. That ought to be understood as good news for people and society, but instead elite opinion laments it. Second, the private health-care system is still centered on the profit motive, and that gives virtually every health care provider from doctors to drug companies strong incentive to keep raising the costs. That debate has also been grossly distorted in media coverage that typically dismisses alternatives as socialist—and that ends the discussion.
TL: Who influences the coverage?
WG: There are layers of influence that tell reporters this is the safe side of the story. They don’t go to people who might be unsafe sources, like labor leaders who know how changes will affect workers, or to old liberals who are out of favor but who know the origins of Social Security and why it was set up in the first place, or to neutral experts like actuaries who actually understand how it works and what the trust funds are all about. If they write about what the AFL-CIO thinks, they are out of the orthodoxy.
TL: What are other layers?
WG: Most reporters who cover difficult areas typically develop sources, and they write for those sources. They don’t want to offend them for fear they will lose access. Reporters, we know, are sensitive, nervous animals; they act like scared little rabbits. They also know what the owners of their publications think. And those owners think pretty much what the Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce think.
Well I read the Greider interview and it was mostly "Why can't journalists be as principled as me?"
I don't disagree with him on Medicare (it's going broke) and his position on Social Security is mostly nostalgia for the good ole days. What difference does it make to me that the system was set up as an accounting trick? No matter what, benefits will be automatically cut 25% when I retire around 2035. This will turn a merely bad return on investment (see the Powerline link) to an awful one.
Well I read the Greider interview and it was mostly "Why can't journalists be as principled as me?"
And it's a good question.
Anyone who's been ahead of a number of financial stories over the years while getting on the bad side of Paul Krugman AND David Stockman must be doing something right.
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