FackCheck.org Blows It
FackCheck.org Blows It
Today, FactCheck.org — a website run by UPenn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center — lambastes critics of President Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme for suggesting that his plan would be a “windfall” for Wall Street. They base their criticism entirely on new data about the administrative costs of Federal Thrift Savings Plans, which they claim are the model for the Bush proposal.
I guess they missed this article in today’s Washington Post:
Bush’s proposed accounts differ substantially from the 19-year-old TSP [Thrift Savings Plan]. Moreover, they would be much more difficult to run than the TSP and have far higher administrative costs than the president and his supporters let on, some experts say.
[snip]
“It’s not really like TSP at all,” said James Sauber, chairman of the Employee Thrift Advisory Council, a 15-member panel of representatives from federal labor and managerial organizations.
[snip]
The White House acknowledges that there are many differences between the TSP and the proposed accounts, and that Bush’s system would be more expensive to run.
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Think Progress has ripped FactCheck.org a few new ones lately. And there was much rejoicing. (They write other good stuff [...]
March 4th, 2005 at 8:58 pmfactcheck.org just totally blew my confidence –theirs is a huge error, a blunder. Factcheck wrote;
“New information turned up by FactCheck.org shows that the type of private Social Security accounts being proposed by President Bush would yield very little profit to the securities industry, contrary to persistent claims of a potentially huge “windfall” to Wall Street.”
Seems like they don’t teach them how to dig very deeply, and it makes me wonder, who’s checking the checkers?
- Tabbs
March 3rd, 2005 at 7:07 pmBut will they be filling out their TSP reports in time? I hope they got that memo.
By the way, your terms of Use are really excessive. If you want to have a conversation with your readers that isn’t going to help. Based on the TOU, you shouldn’t bother to allow comments. I understand your need to protect yourself, but rather than all those restrictions you should just disable comments.
March 3rd, 2005 at 7:13 pmWhat Factcheck fails to do – as they often do – is frame the context of their comments. It’s true that Bush’s plan to destroy SS wouldn’t be a windfall for Wall St. in terms of up-selling more risky instruments, etc. Because the envisioned plan would have specific ‘plans’, there wouldn’t be a lot of monkeying around on the retail side.
However, as the Post points out, there’s still an immense revenue stream that will be redirected into the private sector, and Wall St. certainly aims to capture as much of that as it can.
Once again Factcheck falls down. Stick a fork in them: they’re done.
March 3rd, 2005 at 7:31 pmSpocko, I appreciate your concerns about the TOU. But the long and the short of it is, the TOU shouldn’t make any impact on what most people have to say here. But I’ll talk to our lawyers and see what we can do to pare it down.
March 3rd, 2005 at 7:34 pmCheney mentioned (or attempted to) factcheck.org at the VP debate. I wonder why?
March 3rd, 2005 at 7:34 pmApparently Wall Street’s income is entirely from management of investments, it has nothing to do with the investments themselves. I think I’ll unsubscribe to FactCheck.org at this point.
March 3rd, 2005 at 7:50 pmFactCheck has a history of producing false balance and dubious research. Their record on the AWOL story is just awful. I guess Brooks Jackson would rather mislead people than be called a liberal.
Of course, as FactCheck’s boss, he’s doing both.
March 3rd, 2005 at 8:46 pmWith respect to the TOU here, I think that FactCheck may get hoisted by their own petard. I am not an attorney, but do have some experience with high-volume, very public discussion groups/blogs. I was always counseled by attorneys to make it clear that the person who posted owns the content they posted because otherwise, the organization running the site could be the target for libel suits. So, be my guest, claim ownership of my intellectual property. Just hope that I don’t say anything I shouldn’t . . .
March 3rd, 2005 at 9:01 pmI thought this fact site was bias. Whenever Kerry had a point in the debates they broke it down where it wasn’t true. But as I recall, it couldn’t be proved to be untrue beyond a reasonable doubt. Unlike Bush’s points.
March 3rd, 2005 at 9:02 pmLast week I stumbled across a wingnut post that claimed that the Chilean costs were much lower than we are saying ours will be–but on investigation it turned out that they had ignored the cost of a disability insurance policy that had to be included to make it equivalent.
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:11 pmThe fact is Wall Street in the end has little to do with this scheme. If it benefits from it, fine.
This whole privatization thing is simply about ideology. The extremist right, which is no less whacko than they were in 1964, is pushing privatization because they don’t believe the evil government should be in the business of protecting seniors from destitution.
Once you realize the obvious, then ALL of the “arguments” made by these liars are bogus.
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:26 pmWhen I saw Brooks Jackson on C-Span talking up his website, and when I realized that it was affiliaed with the Annenberg Center and that corporate media bitch Jamison, I knew all I needed to know about this over-rated and phony website.
Factcheck.org is just another corporate media fraud, funded by and peopled by the same types of people who own, run, and or work for the corporate whore media.
Any more questions?
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:35 pmBush and Wall St. have succeeded in spinning that there won’t be big fees. It’s a ruse. Once private accounts are established, then the lobbying will begin to allow you to take your account to an investment manager that charges more but promises higher returns. The industry even estimates under this scenario their fees would be worth $250 Billion, and that’s while they’re trying to camouflage their salivating lust for private accouts.
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:03 pmI really enjoyed Factcheck during the election. I felt that they did point out Bush’s whoppers, but another post did point out my other feeling – a case of false equivalence between Kerry and Bush. Kerry got demerits for not using precise langauge (example: 200 billion dollar war got a ding even though it is true – the ‘total cost’ of the war, not just our spending to date).
Maybe they should have set up a 10 point system, 10 points being tinfoil hat territory, 1 being 100% true but transposing numbers accidently (like saying 1974 instead of 1947…).
Cheney’s “I never met you Mr. Edwards” would have merited a 10, for example.
I did send factcheck an e-mail about the Bin Laden/Saudi flights out of the US. I noted that they contextualized them by saying that Richard Clarke had approved them – that it didn’t matter who OK’d them – none of the rest of us could fly yet…
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:19 pmThis “fact” was that proverbial final straw. This isn’t the first time they’ve been off by a mile — but this one got me to unsubscribe.
March 4th, 2005 at 1:36 amAdd another voice against the terms of use. I’d never been here before, and after reading that, i won’t be back.
it’s not just the possible liability that Ken points out, it’s just plain immoral to claim ownership of the work of other people. If I decided to hang out here and post regularly, APAF could legally publish books, cds, and movies of “Bunnt’s Best Posts”, and then turn around and sue me if I ever used my own words again! OK, I don’t think this post is soon to be a major motion picture, but they went out of their way to take away every single right i have and give them all to themselves.
The whole concept is evil. Take some business lessons from Sergey. Don’t do it.
March 4th, 2005 at 3:06 amThanks for this post. I emailed Fact Check asking them to check Max Sawicky’s recent post on the administrative costs. Fact Check is a misnomer.
March 4th, 2005 at 8:45 amThe terms of use don’t say the site owns posts. They say that the site gets a license. Just scanning them, I don’t see anything onerous.
March 4th, 2005 at 10:43 amGB:
This is the clause that I think has raised hackles:
“So, by posting to the Blog or otherwise transmitting comments, pieces, ideas or other information (collectively, “Submissions”) to us, you grant to us and our designees a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, assignable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right (including any moral rights) and license to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works based on, perform and display such Submissions (in whole or in part) in any media now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose whatsoever, without compensation to you or any other provider of the Submissions.”
It is the most sweeping claim of IP ownership I think that I have ever seen.
March 4th, 2005 at 10:47 amI actually think FactCheck make a pretty good point. I don’t support privatization but CAF should have been a lot more careful.
March 4th, 2005 at 11:52 amIt’s sad to have to conclude that ideology has infected Annenberg Public Policy Center. Or is it politics? Or is it whoring to the powers that be cause that’s how you get ahead in today’s America?
March 4th, 2005 at 12:51 pmWhile the American people are trying to make up their minds about Bush,s Social Security, Remember one thing. When Bush has promised the American people anything, It is a lie! b Bush is the most prolific liar in Presidental History. I served my country for 24 years starting in 1949 and retired in 1973. I fought the Korean war on a Heavy Cruise, Then went to Submarines, Both Diesel and Nuke,s. I think this gives me the Capitol to say We have the worst President in our History! Serving my country in the above about my service also should tell you in two war,s Korea and the Cold war. How much time did this Coward, sitting in the White House serve. He if all facts were known, NONE. hE HAS SENT 1500 OF OUR FINEST TO THEIR DEATHS, MAIMED 10 TO 15,00 MORE! get rid of this maniac, Elect a Democratic Congress to stop this man. At 73 my life is almost over. For other American,s Living under this Neo- Consertive Government will be a Living hell!
March 4th, 2005 at 3:50 pmAfter unsucessfully trying to get FactCheck to correct their errors (and deliberately distorted quotes) on its AWOL coverage, I wrote to Jamieson, with Chapter and Verse showing where FactCheck was demonstrably wrong in its facts, and had deliberatelysubstituted ellipses for a key clause in a quote from the Boston Globe to make its point.
(The quote was something like “Bush needed 15 active duty points, and 48 inactive duty points, each fiscal year.” Factcheck had it as “Bush needed 15 active duty points…each fiscal year” then went on to affirm that Bush had fulfilled his requirements because he had received the requisite 15 points that fiscal year. He had not, however, received the 48 inactive duty points—a fact made clear in the Globe article itself.)
anyway, Jameson’s response was to ask why she should regard me as the least bit credible because I referred to her as “Kathryn” Jameson, not “Kathleen” Jameson.
March 4th, 2005 at 8:43 pmIf this is the same website as during the election, I stopped reading it when I realized they would point out a minor thing for Kerry for every major earth-shattering lie by Bush, giving “equal time”, without pointing out the “weight” of the lies or distortions. For example, no WMD’s is a lie for Bush, and Kerry misstating something was $8 million instead of $7.9 million, were somehow equivalent lies…
March 5th, 2005 at 10:18 amThe way to end our presence in Iraq is to Bring our young Soldiers and Marines back to this mess that Bush has created in America, Then take all Crongressmen and Senators with Bush who have never served time on active duty in any Military to Iraq. Believe me America will never miss any of you. To add to that pitiful bunch, Take all extreme Conservitive Evangelicans, Catholics, and Baptist! Let them get a chance at putting their lives on the line.
March 5th, 2005 at 1:49 pmI don’t think anyone’s demonstrated FactCheck to be in error here. The fact the “some experts say” that SS might be more difficult to run than the TSP doesn’t establish anything other than that there’s debate.
I don’t have a problem with Factcheck. OR the Washington Post article.
Both can be quite correct, actually. But the proposal isn’t even fully developed enough for there to be a meaningful cost estimate.
March 5th, 2005 at 4:17 pmIf anyone doubts this Administrarion’s goal for Social Security, Beware, Their intention is to totally due away with SS as we know it in time, also Medicare and Medicade. They have raided the SS Trust surplus fund so our young Military Troops can hand out dollars to the Iraq people. How on earth can you audit books, When you do not know what the Iraq people do with it! The IQ of Bush should make him as smart as a hog-Almost. American’s do not listen to his exagerated lies, Write your Congressman or they are going to cram it down our throats. By the way Bush, Where are the WMD’ you crammed down our throats?
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