I try not to fawn over Paul Krugman, Op-Ed columnist at the New York Times; many other people do that for me. I don't read him regularly but I did read his book The Great Unraveling and enjoyed it. His obvious strength is that he is a working economist and an economics Professor. So when questions about the budget or government fiscal policy comes up, he is perfectly suited to cut through the spin and clutter and get down to the financial brass tacks, so to speak.

I guess some people see him as a "liberal" but most of what I've seen him write has more to do with reality checking any budget claims by the Bush administration. He seems very able at finding the flaws and holes in proposals. If the numbers don't add up or there are assumptions that are unrealistic, he finds them and points them out. I'm glad he does it. I haven't a clue about such things and he still makes it understandable to me.

All this is preface to suggesting that you read his current column Many Unhappy Returns. It points out huge flaws in the current drive to create private/personal accounts alongside Social Security. I don't feel right quoting it because I would have to quote the whole thing. The link is to the NYT website which requires registration and even then it stops being accessible after 30 days or so. If you understand that 70 is greater than 20, you can probably understand the article. It's not too math intensive.