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I’ve been hearing for years about how much trouble Social Security is in, and how pretty soon there won’t be enough money left in the trust fund to pay everyone’s pensions in full, and how we’ll have to raise taxes or cut benefits. That’s almost entirely false.

The Greenspan commission that restructured Social Security back in 1983 got almost everything right (which is why we haven’t needed to change Social Security tax rates, diddle around with the cost of living adjustments, nor change the age at which people retire for forty years). The one thing they got wrong?

Back then, about 90 percent of all wages were subject to Social Security payroll taxes. Today, that’s dropped to around 82.6 percent as more income has shifted above the taxable maximum.

Source: Actually, Social Security Nailed It In 1983

The most common suggestion for “fixing” Social Security is to get rid of the ceiling on the amount of income subject to the tax, but that’s the wrong way to think about it. Getting rid of the ceiling would decouple the size of the eventual pension from the size of the income that earned it, which would give conservatives yet another hook for criticizing the program.

The right fix is to boost incomes of those at the bottom, so that once again 90% of all wages are under the Social Security tax ceiling.

Making sure that lower-income people earn enough money to live on will fix Social Security as a side-effect.

Pretty cool, eh?

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In the run-up to the campaign I saw reports of young people, frustrated that Biden hadn’t managed to do the huge student loan forgiveness that he’d tried to do, say that they weren’t going to vote for him or for Kamala. “If he can’t get this thing done, why should I support him?” Here’s why:

“Beginning May 5, the department will begin involuntary collection through the Treasury Department’s offset program, which withholds payments from the government — including tax refunds, federal salaries, and other benefits — from people with past-due debts to the government. After a 30-day notice, the department will also begin garnishing wages for borrowers in default.”

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/student-loans-default-referred-debt-200132438.html

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Clearly the move here is to come up with a large language model that writes really good prose that advocates for the policies that you want.

The draft says the department must greatly expand its use of artificial intelligence to help draft documents, and to undertake “policy development and review” and “operational planning.”

—https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/20/us/trump-news#trump-state-department-overhaul

No doubt other people thought of this before me. I wonder how far along they are?

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Poor Ms. Feuerstein. She just suffers and suffers. I bet she’s as tired as the rest of us of the Leopards-Eating-Faces jokes.

China has long relied on the U.S. for soybeans. But with new steep tariffs, it is likely to look even more to Brazil and Argentina.

Source: How Trump’s Tariffs Could Hurt US Farmers and Benefit Brazil – The New York Times

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When Ashley was a puppy, she was pretty bad about chewing up stuff. As a stop-gap measure, we piled a bunch of stuff on the window seat, which put it out of reach of puppy-Ashley’s jaws.

The stop-gap ended up lasting about two years. But today I finally cleared the window seat, so Jackie and I can sit and look outside.

It’s a very nice place to take morning coffee.

Picture of a window seat, the window looking out on a flowering crab apple, with some pillows and a cushion