Social Directors messing with Social Security

The problem with Social Security is the social directors, the DeLogs and Thoma and Greenspans. What do these people know about the collective wisdom of workers about when to retire and when to work? They never ask us.

Mark Thoma thinks we can tweak the system once every 16 years. What nonsense that a hundred million workers can rely on Thoma to tweak their life plans every 16 years.

The answer is simple. Forget that this is a government run program, go ahead and ask the workers themselves when they plan to retire. Ask a representative sample of workers, do this every two or three years. Then publish the results, then change the pay in and pay out to move the social security toward a balance that represents the collective measurement.

We cannot make Social Security more accurate than asking the workers themselves. No matter how many recommendations Brad DeLong makes, he will never be more accurate about measuring retirement plans then the workers themselves. Take a representative sample.