I'm not one to take credit for anything, in part because most of the time I can't remember what I came up with and what I stole from others. It's a consequence of having the internet jacked into your head all day. Words and phrases and ideas just flow through constantly.
I think David was a bit too "generous" in how he cast me in this narrative, but there is, I think, some truth to it. Basically I farted in church. It was taboo to suggest expanding Social Security, and I helped to break that taboo.
I went to a retirement funding conference and was on a panel which had a topic something like "Beyond Social Security." Essentially, the topic was what else can we do to improve the retirement situation. My role there was to fart in church again. None of the (many very fine) people working on retirement security issues were "allowed" to say that the answer was to expand Social Security. It was such a political non-starter that only "other" things could be considered. So various Rube Goldberg proposals (some ok, some not, but all mostly ineffectual) were put forward. I got to say that beyond Social Security should be MOOOOOOAAAAAR Social Security. It isn't that this was something most people disagreed with, it was just something that was too crazy to actually propose. Bring on the crazy blogger to propose it.
It isn't crazy anymore. Progress.
