On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 07:50:27 -0800, Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'd like to suggest a navigational metaphor for why smaller changes, > rather than drastic ones (of the sort implied by "fiscal child abuse" > and similar hyperbole) are appropriate. > > Imagine you're piloting an airplane and find that you are off-course. > Your destination is directly east, 90 degrees and you find that you're > on a course of 80 degrees. How much of a course correction is needed? > > The answer is, "it depends." If you are 10 miles from your destination, > you need to make a big correction, quickly. If you are 500 miles > away, you need a small correction. In fact, if you make a big > correction when you're far away, you're wasting fuel and time.
The problem with that metaphor is that when you are piloting, you are only concerned about the destination, not the intervening points along the journey. Whether you are 10 miles away or 500 miles away, if you find you are off-course, you just point yourself back towards your final destination. With Social Security, the journey is as important as the destination. We have to continue to pay out from the system while we are making the course corrections. If we make a small course correction now, then things may be fine by the time we get to 500 miles from here, or the number of years out that we are discussing (I've lost track), but there will be problems along the way. Imagine a trip from Boston to Miami. If you don't need to make any stops along the way, then no matter where you are on the journey, if you discover you are off-course, you point yourself back towards Miami. But if you need to make stops in Philadelphia, New York City, Norfolk, and Savannah along the way, then the course correction needs to be bigger, sooner, despite the final destination. MD _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
