Recent reports predict that, barring any changes, the Social Security program will become insolvent--no longer able to pay promised benefits in full--around the year 2030, well within the retirement years of the baby boom generation. They also predict that the trust fund will stop being a net contributor and become instead a net claimant on the federal budget in the year 2013--much earlier than previously thought. With the world population aging, the increasing number of dependent senior citizens in all countries will become a major public policy issue that will have to be addressed continually over the next fifty years.

Social Security: What Role for the Future? takes a fresh look at the questions essential to understanding the future of old-age protection under Social Security. Experts in economics, actuarial science, and public policy examine such front-burner issues as the effects that variables such as mortality, births, inflation, wage levels, and pension benefits will have on the income of future retirees; the implications and effects of alternative levels of funding and financing on Social Security; and the prospects for publicly and privately financed income programs. The authors conclude with an examination of social security programs around the world and pose critical questions about the future direction of Social Security in the United States--questions that Congress and the American public will have to address in the coming years.

The contributors include Robert H. Binstock, Barry P. Bosworth, Robert Brown, Gary Burtless, David M. Cutler, Jagadeesh Gokhale, Edward Gramlich, Stephen Goss, Robert Hagemann, Dalmer Hoskins, Estelle James, Diane Macunovich, David Mullins, Alicia H. Munnell, Robert J. Myers, Martha Phillips, Sylvester Schieber, Margaret Simms, C. Eugene Steuerle, and Carolyn Weaver.

Copublished with the National Academy of Social Insurance

"This latest installment in the Pension Research Council series brings together a wealth of information for those concerned with public policy options. . . .The book is substantive. . . . It provides data, estimates, models, and a framework to help readers think about the underlying problems in the system."--"Industrial and Labor Relations Review" The United States social security system is the nation's largest social insurance program. As such, it has a far-reaching impact throughout the economy, influencing not only old-age economic security but also many behaviors, including corporate employment policy, retirement patterns, and personal saving. In the past, the system's universal coverage and generous benefits ensured popular support to a degree enjoyed by no other form of "big government" social spending. Yet over two-thirds of all Americans today believe that the social security system will face bankruptcy by the time they retire. The question of social security reform--how to reform the system or whether the system needs reform at all--is the subject of heated debate at all levels of government, in the media, and among workers, pensioners, and employers. "Prospects for Social Security Reform" informs the debate by exploring why the system is at a crossroads today and what to do about it. Contributors detail the size and nature of the problem, explain views of key "stakeholders" regarding reform options, and report new evidence on how reform might affect the economy. Research findings and public opinion polls are analyzed, as are lessons from other countries experimenting with new ways to deliver old-age benefit promises. No other volume includes as diverse and expert a set of perspectives on reform and privatization as those gathered here from economists, actuaries, employers, investment managers, and representatives of organized labor. Among its chapters is the path-breaking study "Social Security Money's Worth," the 1999 winner of the TIAA-CREF's Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security. Olivia S. Mitchell is Executive Director of the Pension Research Council and Professor of Insurance and Risk Management at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Robert J. Myers is a Special Consultant to the Social Security Division of William M. Mercer, Inc. and former Chief Actuary of the Social Security System. Howard Young is a former Special Consultant to the President of the United Auto Workers Union and former Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan.

The promise of a genuine Cervantes manuscript is the ravishing lure in this adroitly constructed and literate mystery tale. A nine-year old child and her nanny are destroyed in a terrorist (?) bomb blast in the Seville airport. A brutal fisherman disappears at sea in a boat his fishing alone could not buy. His mutterings about an "Operation Cervantes" baffle his mistress (a novelist he cannot understand much less control). Rumors of the availability of the first six chapters of Don Quixote in Cervantes's hand ruffle the greedy rare book market. A discovery like this is something scholars know to be improbable, but a convincing scrap authenticated as the real thing keeps the lure moving in lively and discreet circulation. The CIA in Washington has embraced, if that is possible for the impossibly haughty aristocrat involved, a reactionary count who lunches regularly with the king. The dead child's father, an American, ex-CIA, and happily married into an old Spanish banking family disappears. A professor of Spanish history in the American Northwest and an expert CIA hit man is sent to Madrid. Corpses multiply. The airport bombing is the murderous sign of a complex but always well-controlled puzzle that burrows deeply into modern Spanish society, politics, manners and sensibility. While the scene is fundamentally Spanish, there are crucial New York, London, Oxford and French episodes. The Cabal is morally exacting, sexually interesting, and violent where necessary. Clever and emotionally costly its milieu is closer to the espionage novel than to the traditional puzzle mystery. Its solution is absolutely convincing and as refreshing as a glass of the driest Spanish sherry.

The author began to hear from the readers of his book, Crocodile Coast Crash, asking him what happened to the bushmen and their mates, the crew of the Boeing and surprisingly, the American tycoon. Here is what happened. Some of the surviving passengers wandered off in the cyclonic storm to seek the towns or villages that they mistakenly believed must be near by. They promptly got lost, and wandered far along the empty coast. After all the other passengers were lifted out by helicopter, these strays had to be found and rescued. This rescue was undertaken by the bushmen, their women, and some friends, all who had contributed so much to saving the other survivors.
The search and rescue involved the use of bush skills, interaction, unexpected romance for the searchers, life threatening dangers and personal achievements. The fate of the wanderers was mixed and the rewards for the rescuers after all were found contained some surprising results.
Readers will be satisfied that all involved received their just rewards.