Dennis Kucinich gets it

In an interview with L’Humanité just before the US elections this month, Kucinich was asked: "What is your view of what is presently happening in France, the defense of retirement at 60?"

Kucinich's reply:

People are right to fight cut-backs in their social gains. You know, there exists a parallel debate in the United States. After this conversation I must go to an interview for a national television network, the subject being the reform envisaged for the Social Security program. A debate is launched, in the name of budgetary rigor, to raise the retirement age to 70, and to make cuts in the pensions. This makes no economic sense. On the contrary, we should lower the retirement age. To create jobs for the young, and to have young retired people available for training programs, and for other useful parallel social activities.

Some demand, with loud cries, together with Wall Street, that social security be privatized. Some years ago Bush tried to do this. Most fortunately, he was put in the position of failing. But just imagine what would have happened if he had succeeded. After the disaster of the wars and the financial crash, the peoples’ pensions would have evaporated completely. Today they will often have lost a portion of their savings because the stock market bets made with the money placed in their complementary retirement policies have turned rotten. But if social security had been privatized they would have lost everything.

Read the rest here.