cover image Restoring Hope in America

Restoring Hope in America

Sam Beard. ICS Press, $14.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-55815-489-6

Outlays from Social Security are predicted to exceed income beginning about 2013. Beard, chairman of the National Development Council, has a response to this looming problem that resembles campaign literature: it makes a direct appeal to the grass roots, has good sound bites-- ""a plan that can... turn every hard-working American into a millionaire""--and avoids the tough questions. His proposal of a two-tiered scheme for saving Social Security and also generating major new economic growth combines a safety net (Tier 1) with the opportunity to make money (individually managed retirement funds, Tier 2). The transition from the existing system would be supported through the sale of bonds (voluntary if enough are purchased, mandated otherwise), and a new private-public corporation would oversee the money and its management. This ""manifesto for financial independence and security"" stresses the potential benefits of using money to make money, shows how people earning more than $5000 a year could benefit under the new system and provides some fundamentals on how individuals and small businesses can set up productive pension funds. But it tends to belabor the readily comprehensible and buttresses the proposal through repetition rather than exploration of the assumptions that make it work--e.g., compound interest averaging 8%, opportunity for 40 to 50 years of steady employment for 80% of the working population, unbounded economic growth. (May)