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I've been reading the writings of Andrew Tobias (his books and his online columns; I highly recommend  The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need) for years. A Democrat, he tries to find common ground with his critics in order to engage them in conversation.

That's all well and good, but one consequence is that he doesn't always challenge the false premises of his commenters.

Case in point, in yesterday's column he quoted the following:

Skip Sherrod: “You write, ‘He [Munger] is one Republican who favors keeping Social Security just as it is.’ How anyone could favor keeping Social Security ‘just as it is’ is beyond me. The idea was actuarially unsound from the get go and in its present form will be financially unsustainable for future generations. Those I.O.U.s in the Social Security Trust Fund may be counted as assets, but we can’t pay benefits with them. Lord knows there have been enough impending Social Security crisis warnings issued to choke a goat.”

And Tobias responded:

Well, when a super-no-nonsense self-made Republican billionaire takes this view, I’d suggest you not dismiss it out of hand.

The Clinton budget “surpluses” George W. Bush told us were “our money” that we should demand back as tax cuts (mainly for the best off among us) were in large measure not surpluses at all, but cash to be set aside for the Trust Fund.  Not as in securities as Merrill Lynch, but as a strong national balance sheet, with low National Debt, that would allow the debt to rise as needed, somewhat, to meet these obligations.  Hence President Clinton’s parting theme, as he handed the surplus to his successor:  “Save Social Security First.”  Meaning: before you spend the surplus on other things, like wars of choice, or squander it on tax cuts for folks who are getting by just fine already.  Instead, the Republicans did squander it.  Hugely imprudent, huge problem, and I hate that enough Democrats went along to allow it – but tax cuts, once proposed by the chief executive, are very hard to vote against.

All that said, my guess is that Charlie Munger’s off-the-cuff “just as is” wouldn’t preclude a little tinkering around the edges other type I’ve written about in the past.  That’s all it would take to get the benefits in line with the demographics.  (1) I’d keep 62 as the age for early retirement.  But, where currently the full-benefits retirement age rises one month per year to 67 in 2027, I would let it keep rising to 69 in 2051.  (Hey: “Seventy is the new fifty-five.”) (2) Where the 6.2% tax rate you and your employer each pay drops to zero on wages above a certain cap, I’d have it drop to 1% instead.  Annoying, but not a killer. (And worth paying so that grandma – much as we love her – doesn’t have to move in.)  (3) I’d keep raising benefits with inflation.  But for higher-income recipients, I’d calculate those benefits based on price inflation, not wage inflation, in years when prices rose slower than wages.  Bang: you’re done.  A bit of pain around the edges, with plenty of time to prepare for it, and the Social Security problem is solved.

Over the years I've often sent short email comments to Tobias, and he usually responds with a quick thank you note. However, this time I sent him the following:

Andy,

I was very disappointed to read in your latest column that you are jumping on the bandwagon to cut Social Security benefits by raising the full-benefits age. You glibly say that "Seventy is the new fifty-five", and it may well be -- for those who've spent their lives doing cushy office work (like me - I'm 61, retired, and I don't feel a day over 40). It doesn't take a lot of brawn to keep pushing a mouse around or type on a computer's keyboard.

But what about all the people who are employed in manual labor-type jobs? The nytimes recently published an article on just this issue.

There's also the problem with all the people in their late 50's, say, who lost their jobs due to the current economic crisis. Many of these folks may never again be able to find a job.

Especially because of our current economic woes, I think we should be lowering the retirement age, not raising it.

Rather than trying to reason with people who, like your correspondent Skip today, claim that Social Security "was actuarially unsound from the get go and in its present form will be financially unsustainable for future generations", I wish you would point out that Social Security is, in fact, very sound. Without making any changes, it will be able to pay out full benefits until at least 2037, and after that it only requires minor tweaks to keep it going (such as the suggestion that you've adopted of dropping the rate to 1% rather than zero above a certain wage level).

--JT

Somewhat to my surprise he replied a few hours later with a thoughtful note:

Thanks.

As the proposed changes on age wouldn't begin to kick in until 2028, no one currently currently 49 or older would be affected by them.

But to ask a 48-y-o to save enough to allow for one more month before his or her full Social Sec benefit kicks in (and someone currenty 24 to plan to have to wait to 69 instead of 67) seems to me the kind of sacrifice we may have to endure in the present circumstance.

With luck, our economic fortunes will so improve we'll someday be able to reverse this.

Best,

Andy

To which I replied with:

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Just a couple points. You didn't address the problem of laborers who really can't keep working until they reach the current full retirement age, let alone a higher one in the future. And I'd be a lot more willing to ask the 98% to make a reasonable-sounding sacrifice if once - just once - we saw the 2% at the top do a little sacrificing.

Thanks again.

And he came back with:

It's an important point, and one reason I would not raise the early retirement age. In the past, I've called for a lower age for physical laborers . . . it's just that it's hard to see how that gets administered fairly and without causing great rancor -- gradations of physical labor, and gradations of what other work they could do, and how long they did it -- and all that.

Ps -- I am so with you on the 2%. But having that extra 1% is not entirely trivial -- you may already be paying close to 50 cents on the dollar in some states, so this is actually 2% of what you had left. 

I sent him one more note to ask his permission to publish our exchange, which he graciously granted, only asking that I include his original post.

So here it is. And no, I've never actually had dinner with Andrew Tobias. It just sounded like a better title than "My Email Exchange with Andrew".

I was reading the book The First Word by Christine Keneally about the origins and evolution of human speech when I came upon this passage. Primate researcher Janette Wallis...

 

used hidden cameras to capture evidence of a baboon gesture she calls the muzzle wipe—a quick pass across the bridge of the nose with the hand. The muzzle wipe typically occurs in situations in which a baboon may be nervous or conflicted for some reason.

…Humans do put the hand to their face when nervous, and indeed, as she pointed out, psychiatrists and law enforcement officials often interpret a hand-to-face gesture as evidence of uncertainty or even deception.

Once Wallis convinced the audience that the muzzle wipe existed, she showed a video of George H.W. Bush. The ex-president was speaking at a press conference about his son the president of the United States. He discussed what was at the time headline news—George W. Bush’s having been arrested in his youth on a drunk-driving charge. “Unlike some,” said the older Bush in a tone of complete confidence, “he accepts responsibility.” He then raised his hand to the bridge of his nose and scratched it.

 

A lot of the details of my high school days are just a hazy blur, but one thing I can say with absolute certainty: when I graduated in 1967 the very concept of same sex marriage would have been met with total derision by virtually everyone in the country.

How the world can change in forty short years.

Back then, the word "homosexual" was never uttered on television, "gay" was still a synonym for "happy", and a guy could enjoy show tunes without having his guy-ness called into question.

Heck, back then most people could truthfully (if not strictly accurately) say that they didn't even know anyone who was gay.

(Just for some additional context, recall that Loving v. Virginia, which finally declared race-based restrictions on marriage were unconstitutional, was decided on June 12, 1967.)

I think the first time I encountered the word "gay" applied to homosexuals was in a controversial article in Life magazine from sometime in the mid-60's. The only thing I remember now from that article is its claim that gays liked to wear sneakers and sweaters, and the only reason I remember that is because it became a running gag among some of my crowd. Whenever we saw someone in sneakers we'd make a comment.

But then in the late 60's and early 70's a gay activist movement began to gain some traction. Before long, gay characters began appearing occasionally in television shows, most notably on a famous episode of "All in the Family", where Archie Bunker learned that one of his drinking buddies was gay.

Somewhere around then, psychiatrists decided that homosexuality was not a disease after all, but a normal aspect of humanity's sexual behavior.

Oh, there were some kinks in the road as gays became more visible in society, such as when a third rate singer tried to revive her career by starting a campaign to "Save the Children" from the gay down in Florida.

But by the very early 80's it seemed that gay people were well on their way to achieving great gains in civil rights.

That's when AIDS entered our national consciousness. Since it was initially considered a gay disease ("gay plague" was one of its earliest nicknames), AIDS probably set back the gay rights movement by at least ten years.

But a funny thing happened. As more and more gay people "came out", many folks discovered that not only did they in fact know someone who was gay, but gays weren't as threatening as they had once thought.

Probably the single largest factor determining whether someone is for or against gay rights is whether they know someone who is gay or if there is a gay person in their family. (For example, take the Cheney family. Please.)

The second largest factor is age; the younger one is, the more likely one is to support gay rights.

Anyway, some time in the mid-90's the idea of same sex marriage began to make its way slowly into the public discourse.

And now the idea doesn't seem very strange to large segments of the population. Overall, the country seems to be about equally divided on the issue, and there are even a handful of states where it has a slim majority in favor of it.

In 1966 Kander and Ebb's musical "Cabaret" opened on Broadway. Set in Germany during the period that the Nazis were coming into power, one of its songs was performed by a German woman and her Jewish fiancé:

How the world can change
It can change like that
Due to one little word
"Married".

How the world can change. Indeed.

NBC is inviting viewers to submit questions for Matt Lauer to ask President Obama.

The interview will be airing on the Today show next Tuesday, I believe.

Here is the question that I submitted:

When discussing Indonesian human rights abuses, President Obama said, "We have to acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed. We can't go forward without looking backwards..."

But last year when asked about investigating abuses by the United States, Obama said, "I'm a strong believer that it's important to look forward and not backwards, and to remind ourselves that we do have very real security threats out there."

Why is it important for Indonesia to acknowledge past abuses but not the United States?

What a gasbag.

What an opportunist.

What a piece of shit.

Norm Stamper, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition has some thoughts on our marijuana policy:

Hundreds of alcohol overdose deaths occur annually. There has never been a single recorded marijuana OD fatality.

[...]

There have been no documented cases of lung cancer in a marijuana-only smoker, nor has pot been scientifically linked to any type of cancer. (Don't trust an advocate's take on this? Try the fair and balanced coverage over at Fox.) Alcohol abuse contributes to a multitude of long-term negative health consequences, notably cirrhosis of the liver and a variety of cancers.

While a small quantity, taken daily, is being touted for its salutary health effects, alcohol is one of the worst drugs one can take for pain management, marijuana one of the best.

[...]

Alcohol contributes to acts of violence; marijuana reduces aggression. In approximately three million cases of reported violent crimes last year, the offender had been drinking. This is particularly true in cases of domestic violence, sexual assault, and date rape. Marijuana use, in and of itself, is absent from both crime reports and the scientific literature. There is simply no link to be made.

Over the past four years I've asked police officers throughout the U.S. (and in Canada) two questions. When's the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana? (I'm talking marijuana only, not pot plus a six-pack or a fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause, they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask: When's the last time you had to fight a drunk? They look at their watches.

[...]

Anybody out there want to launch a campaign for the re-prohibition of alcohol? Didn't think so. The answer, of course, is responsible drinking. Marijuana smokers, for their part, have already shown (apart from that little matter known as the law) greater responsibility in their choice of drugs than those of us who choose alcohol.

I have always hated pirates.

I don't understand why some people romanticize them.

They are terrorists with different goals. They want money.

I'm so glad that Richard Phillips has been rescued.

I hate pirates.

Vincent Fumo was found guilty of all 137 charges.

Nice going, Justice System!

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a bill has been introduced in California to legalize marijuana.

California would become the first state in the nation to legalize marijuana for recreational use under a bill introduced Monday by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco.

The proposal would regulate marijuana like alcohol, with people over 21 years old allowed to grow, buy, sell and possess cannabis - all of which is barred by federal law.

Ammiano, a Democrat in his third month as a state lawmaker, said taxes and other fees associated with regulation could put more than a billion dollars a year into state coffers at a time when revenues continue to decline.

...

The analysis also concluded that legalizing marijuana would drop its street value by 50 percent and increase consumption of the substance by 40 percent.

...and would probably reduce tourism to Amsterdam by 50%.

A lot of people are having a hissy fit over Michael Phelps's use of pot. (We used to call it "grass" in my day.)

Kellogg has dropped him, so I've decided to never buy another Kellogg product. I'll also inform my family to make sure not to serve me a Kellogg product when I come for a visit.