Not only are a majority of Americans opposed to "privatizing" any part of their Social Security savings, this majority seems to be on the increase. President George W. Bush's response is to stump around the country in what appears to be an increasingly futile attempt to convince the American public that his plan ― whatever it is; I have not seen a detailed exposition of it ― is the correct "solution" to Social Security's "problems". Furthermore, in the last couple of days I have heard him say twice (once in a televised clip of a public meeting, once on his weekly radio show) that he simply will not accept a "band-aid" solution for Social Security's purported problems. "Band-aid" solutions are, apparently, quick and easy fixes such as (for instance) indexing the "cap" on taxable income to inflation ― a move that would probably take the pressure off Social Security for decades to come, since we seem to have inflation with us, always.
Which brings us to the skyrocketing price of gasoline. We probably shouldn't complain about this ― Europeans have been paying higher prices than we are now paying for a couple of decades. But perhaps we should look at the causes for the current run-up in prices. There seem to be several of these:
(1) Oil companies looking to make obscene profits. Every time gas prices take a big jump, the quarterly financials for the oil companies show a record net.
(2) Everybody wants oil. The market used to be primarily the United States and Western Europe ― a total of half a billion people wanting to gas up their cars once or twice a week. Now China and India ― two billion more people ― seem to be getting into the act. A recent National Geographic article pointed out that today the average eastern Chinese (there are roughly a billion of them) uses one barrel of oil per year; within a few years, this figure will be six barrels of oil per year. Where are those extra five billion barrels of oil per year going to come from?
(3) No matter how many people want oil, and for what purposes, the supply is essentially limited ― and we've already turned a good portion of it into water and carbon dioxide. There are various estimates of when global production is going to top out and start declining; they range from this November (the most pessimistic; I certainly hope it's wrong) to about the same time that Social Security is going to start experiencing benefit problems (the most optimistic ― except for a few oil company officials who still insist that the supply is unlimited).
President Bush's solution? The President who, from his mighty throne in Washington, refuses to accept a band-aid solution for Social Security, proposes opening the Arctic Wildlife Refuge on the north slope of Alaska to "exploration" ― read "despoiling and drilling". By the accounts I've seen, there's enough oil under the North Slope to satisfy Americans for ― how long? ― five years! (Note: I saw this figure some years before SUVs, with their relatively low-efficiency engines, became so popular on America's highways.) After five years, of course, we'd be right back where we are now, except without that North Slope oil to fall back on. Talk about band-aids!
Not that I'm irrevocably opposed to opening this area to drilling and extraction. Even the wealthier liberals who today would lay down their lives to protect the caribou from the depredations of the oil companies will, when push comes to shove, find themselves less ready to give up their SUVs. When that oil is needed, it will still be there ― and it will be taken, and for a couple of years we will be able to continue driving our cars and eating all the caribou steaks we want. The problem is, of course, that once we've used it, that oil will no longer be there.
Let's face it ― or, perhaps, let's not; some things are just too terrible to face ― if in 2042 people stop receiving their Social Security benefits, the probability is that this will not happen because the genuine crisis point has been reached in the content of the Social Security trust fund. The real probability is that this will happen because, in the chaos that ensues after America no longer has ready access to petroleum reserves that we depend on to keep our way of life going (they are, after all, in China's back yard, not ours), the government will simply have disintegrated and will no longer be there to pay out those benefits. I leave the results to your imagination, though you might find it more edifying to drive down to your local cinema and sit through Hitch twice and take your mind off this question.
Band-aid solutions will do wonders for some problems, as they often do with human beings; Social Security is one of those problems. But for other problems, as in human illnesses, extreme intervention seems to be called for; and this is just where our current president seems ready to depend on band-aids.