IrresponsibleUseOfFr's Journal: An Ownership Society

The natural comparison of Bush's vision of a society of ownership society is to say that we are currently a nation of renters.

In local terms, such as myself and my lifestyle I don't understand where this notion of a nation of renters comes from. I don't believe the vast majority of Americans are "renters" in a convential sense. Sure, we rent things. But sometimes it makes sense to rent things rather than own. Renting a car from an airport makes more sense than many alternatives. Renting an apartment makes sense if you are a temporary living situation, such as attending a university. In an ideal world, I still think that there would be some renting.

However, what I think Bush is really getting at, and something that is much more sinister is not the move towards less renting, but rather more ownership. This means, in simple terms, is less public spaces and public land. I don't think it is a wise idea for every section of this country to be owned by one person or entity. It is good and right that we do have public spaces and lands. The US is a nation of tremendous resources, but these resources need to be managed for the public good not for local benefit as any one familiar with the prisoner's dillema will tell you, local best interest is not always the best solution to global prosperity.

But, the scariest move is Social Security reform. In my mind, this is a large and tragic mistake that undermines the purpose of the system. The benefit of social security is that it is always there. It has a lousy rate of return and some reforms are needed, but most reasonable reforms revolve around making sure congress keeps their collective hands out of the "cookie jar" that is Social Security income so-to-speak. Bush's plan undermines social security because what if the stock market crashes? Unlikely, yes. But possible, definitely. Well, anyone with their social security in the stock market just became SOL. But, that was the whole point of the program to begin with, so that people weren't SOL when they retired.

Social security was developed in response to the great depression. Bush is making the susceptible to the same forces that caused the need for its introduction in the first place. How can this be catergorized as anything else other than folly?