With our virtually bankrupt National Insurance Board here in The Bahamas, Dr. Don Boudreaux, over at Cafe Hayek, one of my favourite blogs, had this recent post that is spot on.
It is reprinted here with Dr. Boudreaux's kind permission and as usual he is most instructive.
A Dangerous Financial Product
Don Boudreaux
Here's a letter that I sent yesterday in response to an e-mail that I received:
22 June 2007
Ms. Clara Perez
www.democracyJournal.org
Dear Ms. Perez:
Thanks for your e-mail alerting me to Presidential-hopeful John Edwards's proposal to create "a regulatory commission to protect consumers from dangerous financial products."
If such a commission does its job, I suggest that the first dangerous financial product that it attacks be Social Security. Not only are Social Security's returns lousy; not only are its "customers" never vested their "contributions"; not only does the institution providing it have no sound plan to keep it solvent; not only does this institution intentionally mislead its clients about its insolvency (witness its discussions of the illusory "trust fund") - but its "customers" are forced to buy it. That is a dangerous financial product!
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
George Mason University
Surely sounds familiar doesn't it?
I wish I could put words together like that.
