Good Call Here, Bad Call There

Hat tip to Krugman:

Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn’t do in
the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn’t
have been worse.

I remember gleefully explaining to a grad student in science ed (where I was an instructor) four years ago that Bush's statement, that he'd earned political capitol and intended to spend it on "individual retirement accounts" to replace Social Security, was essentially going to destroy his second term. His desire and attempts to undermine SS basically did trash his second term (though the Terri Schiavo Fiasco later on certainly pounded a few more nails into his coffin, and the ongoing fiasco in Iraq didn't help matters).

I hadn't realized Italy made this mistake. My heart goes out to them. Please take this lesson to heart, people. (Full article, again from Krugman, here.)