Big Trouble

Josh Marshall hits the nail on the head regarding today’s news that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (which insures 44 million Americans) abandoned its tradition of safe, low-yield bond investments in the late stages of the Bush administration in favor of riskier speculative investments:

One of the big drives behind Social Security privatization was the desire to find more money—in the case of Social Security, a lot more money—to keep the fires burning on Wall Street. Not just more fees for the people handling the money, but more money to keep pushing asset values higher. This looks like the same thing just using slightly different means.