Fascinating Look at Why the Media Sucks At Reporting on Social Security

[jtown1123]

Columbia Journalism Review

Excerpt:

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 (The Nation): 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.



THE REST: http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/social_security_in_perspective_part_iii.php?page=all

[jwirr]

1. One item he forgot: Wall Street want it privatized so they can gamble it

away.

[pa28]

20. They won't gamble it away.

Once the SS trust fund is privatized they'll simply strip the value over a period of many years through fees which will in turn become bonuses.

We often hear that the SS trust fund is composed of "worthless IOU's" but you'll note that argument will disappear once privatization becomes a reality in one year or 10 years or however many it takes. The government will make good on that debt as financial institutions become the custodian.

[gratuitous]

2. Wealthy news reporters don't depend on social security

So they're not all that careful about crossing the t's and dotting the i's. Obfuscation, misinformation, convenient lapses of memory about history and placing blame on working people are all standard operating procedure. It serves their purposes to forget about social security funding, how the surplus in the trust fund was created, why, and now why it's gone. There's been a big motherfuckin' party that the wealthy have thrown for themselves on our dime for the past 25 years. With the bills in the mail, it's time to blame irresponsible poor people for the expenses the affluent have run up.

It's a curious dichotomy: While the ranks of the wealthy don't include the likes of you and me, it suits the purposes of the masters of deception* to let you and me think we're in that club, or that we soon will be. It also suits their purposes to let you and me think that we're not part of the Culpable Class that they're setting up to take the blame. Won't we be surprised?

*Bonus points if you know where that locution comes from.

[Kalyke]

3. You do know most news reporters are dirt poor, right?

The average salary for a print journalist is $25,000.

I only made $16,000 in 1997.

[Earth_First]

16. +1

Let's not forget freelance photographers, either...

[Rex]

17. No offense to you, but I think he means the 50 million dollar a year Glenn Beck

variety news reporter

[jtown1123]

4. News reporters are far from wealthy (except personalities like Hannity, Olbermann, etc.)

They actually get paid a pittance. But, it's the "price they pay" to hob nob with the elites and wealthy who influence their reporting. Basically, a White House reporter wants to get invited to come out and play with the administration, so it's going to be difficult for them to criticize or be objective.

[gratuitous]

5. But who reports on developments in social security?

Yeah, $16,000/year ink-stained wretches are the source for what went on at Wednesday's City Council meeting or last weekend's holiday bazaar at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. But who's walking the corridors of power to get the inside scoop on the House Committee meeting or the Senate Select Committee hearing on budgetary matters? It isn't Sophie McGillicuddy of the Times-Picayune features section.

[jtown1123]

8. People like Jeanne Sahadi (CNN Money) Allen Sloan (Fortune Mag) Stephen Ohlemacher (Ap)

They make more than the $25k crowd, but journalists like them are few and far between.

[deaniac21]

14. Hannity and KO aren't reporters they are opinion journalists.

Reporters aren't supposed to put their opinions in a story, just the facts.

[That Guy 888]

15. Sometimes they are the children of the wealthy though...

I remember during the coverage of Haiti's earthquake, the station I was watching (don't recall which) went to a reporter who used her news access to check how the employees at her father's factory were doing.

bush* had a cousin on Faux news who "broke" the story that he had one Florida.

Supposedly after the movie "All the President's Men" was released, members of the lucky sperm club started to view reporting as a "glamorous" career.

[Kalyke]

19. This is true:

"Supposedly after the movie "All the President's Men" was released, members of the lucky sperm club started to view reporting as a "glamorous" career."

But more-than-most journalists aren't CIA, like Bob Woodward.

[SidDithers]

6. A more interesting study would be a look...

at why message board posters suck at reporting on social security speculation.

Sid

[jtown1123]

9. Meaning?

[bullwinkle428]

7. K&R. Conflation (SS with Medicare) can work miracles -

just think of the effect "Saddam & 9/11" had on the American public!

[Uncle Joe]

10. This is an excellent interview and well worth the read.

Thanks for the thread, jtown.:thumbsup:

[jtown1123]

11. Anytime. Lieberman has done some awesome reporting that never gets any attention.

[Little Star]

12. k&r

[Hannah Bell]

13. +100.

[Tatiana]

18. knr

:kick:

[Major Hogwash]

21. "has to come up with the trillions it borrowed from the workers." How many?

I always hear this, but never see a figure.
Or a link to a figure.
Or a link to a link to a figure.

[Hannah Bell]

22. it depends on whether you want to count the interest on the debt or not.

the figures are on the social security website.

here's a graphic:




In 1983, the year of the reagan-greenspan fraud, the trust fund contained:

$26.7 billion in current dollars
$42.1 billion in constant 2000 dollars.
.8% of gdp.

Prior to that, the highest balance in the TF as a percent of GDP had been 5.3% of GDP in the 50's; the highest balance in constant 2000 dollars had been 138 billion in the 70s.

In 2007, the TF contained:

2.011.9 TRILLION dollars in current (2007) dollars
$1.746.2 TRILLION dollars in constant (2000) dollars
$15.2% of GDP.


Tables at link:
http://www.econdataus.com/ssfund.html

So without going back & adding up 24 years of income (collections) to see how much is income from contributions & how much is interest, you can say that the TF contains about

$1.9843 TRILLION in current (2007) dollars collected since 1983
$1.703 TRILLION in constant (2000) dollars collected since 1983

Some of it is interest on the borrowing, however. And some of it is from the taxation of SS benefits that *also* kicked in thanks to reagan-greenspan.

it was a complete scam.

and as is becoming completely clear, it did *nothing* to "save" social security. it just made tax cuts for billionaires go down more palatably.

[BrklynLiberal]

23. When the media is the handmaiden of corporate America, what else would one expect?

The media is not merely complicit, they are are co-conspirators

[prolesunited]

24. And to think how the media mocked Gore mercilessly

for his concept of a Social Security lock box. Too many bubble-headed bleach blonds and not enough people who understand how things work.

[Recursion]

25. But the lockbox was a horrible idea

He wanted to take excess receipts and redeem bonds rather than purchase them. The theory was that would have made borrowing cheaper when the time comes, which would be true. The problem was, those bonds are the only leverage SSA has over Congress, and he wanted to give that up.

[Recursion]

26. Social Security contributed to the deficit this year

Outlays exceeded receipts, so some bonds from the Trust Fund had to be redeemed. There was no offsetting tax increase, so the funds for redeeming those bonds were borrowed.

[sofa king]

27. As a veteran of Indian affairs, I wish everyone good luck on 4).

As I've been saying for far too long now, American Indian tribes and Alaska Native groups are the canaries in the coal mine for how they're going to screw the rest of us, some day.

Long before the federal government managed Social Security, it managed the personal accounts of thousands of American Indians and hundreds of tribes. Within years of the formation of the Indian Trust Fund, it was being misused as a slush fund, being pumped into the general fund to hide shortfalls, and being diabolically mismanaged so that a full accounting of the loss could never be accomplished.

It wasn't the government's money, it was the Indians' damned money, and they blew it all, then fought tooth and nail for two decades to avoid being held fully accountable for it.

They'll do the same to you. They know how to do it, and they want to do it.

[vssmith]

28. One very important fact you never see

Since 1937 Social Security has collected a substantial surplus

As of 2009 the SSA has collected $2,540,348,000,000 ($2.5 trillion) more than it has paid out.

In 2009 it collected $807,490,000,000 and paid out $685,801,000,000

The info can be found at: http://www.ssa.gov/history/tftable.html
Please note that the data in this table are in millions of dollars

[Blue_Tires]

29. ttt