However one important point is missing and there are several glaring weaknesses.
Social Security would be secure and could be vastly expanded with real living benefits paid IF we had a full-employment economy.
Never mind economics--- common sense tells us that we can't have millions of unemployed, under-employed and poverty-wage paid workers not paying into the Social Security Trust Fund or paying so little because of partial employment and poverty wages and still expect the Social Security Trust Fund to remain solvent forever with anything other than very limited programs and meager, miserly payouts.
I would also note that while this writer acknowledges the good work done by economist John Kenneth Galbraith, he fails to observe what Galbraith believed to be primary: ending militarism and wars so society could reap the benefits of "peace dividends" in order to create huge government programs like National Public Health Care and National Public Child Care which would create tens of millions of new jobs providing services that are really needed--- unlike militarism and war which we need like we need holes in our heads.
I think this article is good but needs to be strengthened.
John Kenneth Galbraith was an honest liberal and among the present crop of intellectuals honesty--- liberal or otherwise--- is difficult to come by as most seemed to be influenced in their "thinking" more by the size of their pay-checks than the common good as is readily apparent from all these phony liberals, progressives and leftist intellectuals supporting a warmonger like Obama determined to make the working class pay for Wall Street's imperialist wars through austerity measures such as cutting and slashing needed social programs--- everything from public education to Social Security and even Medicaid and Medicare when the state goal of the Affordable Care Act was supposed to be to strengthen Medicaid and Medicare... more lies.
I would also point out that John Kenneth Galbraith's son, James Kenneth Galbraith, is more on the progressive side than his father was.
Here is an excellent article written by James Kenneth Galbraith (written in 2009):
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0903.galbraith.html
And more recently--- 2012--- aptly titled, "We told you so:"
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_told_you_so_20120518//
I would also note that John Kenneth Galbraith never hesitated to bring Marxists into discussions with him on economic matters which provided greater insight to problems and served to strengthen democracy while educating the public.
John Kenneth Galbraith even wrote a book together with a noted Soviet Marxist-Leninist economist.
John Kenneth Galbraith constantly pointed out that it was wrong to think modern societies can have both "guns and butter." This from a man who had experience managing a war-time economy at the beginning of World War II.
Obama has rejected even the most liberal/progressive economic advice in favor of the reactionary advice he receives from those most loyal to Wall Street's greedy, parasitical, money-grubbing interests which always lead to conflict and wars.
Alan L. Maki
