OJ you should blog Robert J. Samuelson column in the Washigton Post from last Friday, October 10, 2003. He makes a lot more sense than Krugman. Some quotes:

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Almost everything you think you know about budget deficits is probably wrong or misleading. For starters, they don't automatically cripple the economy.

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Indeed, rising deficits are sometimes helpful. They are now.

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Higher deficits didn't raise interest rates.

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But the biggest misconception about deficits is that, by themselves, they threaten the economy's long-term vitality. Not true. The real threat is rising government spending.

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The danger is that higher government spending -- however financed -- will trigger a vicious circle. A sluggish economy makes it harder for government to pay promised benefits. Pressures mount to raise taxes, increase borrowing or abruptly cut benefits. The first two choices are self-defeating; the third is unfair. This is the death trap of the welfare state, here and in Europe and Asia.

The way to avoid the death trap is to minimize future spending increases. Some needed steps are obvious. Congress should gradually raise the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare to 69 or 70; make benefits less generous for the well-off elderly; fully tax all Social Security benefits; and eliminate unneeded or wasteful federal programs -- from Amtrak to farm subsidies.

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A Krugman explanation of the economics relating to how the Coyote manages to afford all those items he buys from the Acme Corporation would be a better use of the Times' valuable op-ed space than what he keystroked here (or just about any other week, for that matter), especially since the current debt as a percentage of the total GNP is far lower than the debt level 20 years ago, when Democrats first started howling about the "Reagan Deficits."

Given his apparent lack of financial resources, the Coyote seems to be racking up a substantial deficit, yet his monetary difficulties never seem to be a factor, let alone surpassing his problems with speed, gravity, instant tornado pills and the like. If Paul can explain the financial underpinnings between the desert southwest carnivore and his product supplier, then he deserves that Nobel Prize in economics all his accolytes keep talking him up for.

Krugman is insane. Samuelson merely funny.

I don't know how much less generous SSI benefits can be for me. Since I have no intention of ever retiring, I never paid attention to it, but last month I looked at my SSI payout. I will get back monthly just about what I paid in monthly. Only I paid in 40 years and would not, ordinarily, expect to get back more than 10 years or so.

But it ain't a pension, is it? It's insurance.

So how does SSI compare with my private life insurance? SSI's meagre return is much better. About three times better, in fact.

How does the economy know where the dollar came from? Why is government spending on, say, lighthouses less beneficial than private spending on, say, chincilla bedspreads?

Harry --

SSI is actually a welfare program.

May your return on your life insurance grow ever smaller.

Robert:

We did.

Harry:

Then the program will pay for itself. What's anyone worried about?

Well, it could if all the money hadn't been spent on other stuff already.

If I had died when I was 32, which I was expected to do, my widow and kiddies would have been benefitted greatly by SSI. Far more than I could have provided through private insurance.

It doesn't much matter to me whether people call SSI a "welfare program." It helps people that the market treats badly. I'm not opposed to that.

"In 1950, for example, 16 workers supported one retiree. By 2014, in part because people are living longer, that ratio will be 2.7 workers to one retiree."

You had fifteen people helping you support your grandfather. But your kid will have 1.7 helping him support you. Taxes increase accordingly

That's true.

You know what? If you privatize it, it stays true.

No, it becomes one person working for himself.