|
Media Advisory
Office of News and Information
212 Whitehead Hall / 3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-2692
Phone: (410) 516-7160 / Fax (410) 516-5251
|
December 5, 1996
For Immediate Release
CONTACT: Christine A. Rowett
car@jhu.edu
|
Media Advisory Source on Social Security
Privatization
A presidential advisory commission is due to make
recommendations about restructuring Social Security to save it
from collapse when members of the Baby Boom begin to retire. One
area of debate is the extent to which the federally run
retirement system should be privatized. Should the government be
allowed to invest in the private market or get out of the
retirement plan business and permit individuals to make their own
retirement investment decisions?
Johns Hopkins University economist Steven H. Hanke has
served as an advisor to the governments of Argentina, Lithuania
and Chile, among others, on currency reform, privatization and
capital market development. In the 1980s, Hanke was a senior
economist on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers.
Hanke is a longtime advocate of privatizing the Social
Security system in order to save it from bankruptcy. He
contributed to the development of the first private social
security system put into place in Chile in 1981, and helped to
set up a similar structure in Argentina. Earlier this year, the
government of Bolivia adopted an approach to privatization
following a Hanke-designed proposal.
"The United States Social Security system is a giant Ponzi
scheme that is fatally flawed and will eventually go into
bankruptcy," Hanke has said. "The only sensible solution is to
put our retirement on sound financial footing. That can be done
with a private social security system."
For more information and further discussion, Dr. Hanke may
be reached at (410) 516-7183. If you have trouble reaching him,
please give me a call and I will attempt to track him down. I may
be reached at (410) 516-7160.
Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the
World Wide Web at
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/
Information on automatic e-mail delivery
of science and medical news releases is available at the
same address.
|
Go to
Headlines@HopkinsHome Page
|