In that vein, I've been e-chatting with my friend Mary lately about the nature and purpose of Social Security. Mary's attitude towards Social Security is, shall we say, dour; the words "Ponzi scheme" have been uttered. But she is no bozo: she's compassionate and willing to help the poor; she just wants to make sure she is getting the operant conditioning right. anyway, here's her latest:
Would it be better policy in means testing to factor in opportunity to provide for oneself, so that the worker who earned $1.8 million over his lifetime gets a bigger benefit, other things such as asset values being equal, than the person born into opportunity to do well who made $5 million over his lifetime but who was improvident? With opportunity should come responsibility.I love it, and I don't think I've heard of it before. A bit like Henry George land taxation, where the levy is a function of productive capacity, whether the holder is using it or not.
