In the days of Clinton, it was a bit harder to write on, because the most arresting elements of the speech were visual. Clinton would stand there and orate, showing an amazing command of facts, figures, policies and repercussions. The Republicans would sit there with expressions on their faces like that of non-Norwegians being force-fed lutefisk. Rectally. Newt would visibly deflate. It was lots of fun.

I guess they’ve been trying to foist George Dub off as an intellectual who does a lot of reading and decision-making and other what you call your leadership stuff lately. This strikes me as one of Karl Rove’s more misbegotten ideas, and will implode the first time the kid strikes out on his own and ad libs within earshot of a reporter that he had that Edger Allan Poe fellow over for dinner last week and thought he was a real swell guy. At which point Rove will croak, "Nevermore."

With George, the SOTU is an occasion to see how many bare-faced lies he’ll utter, and watch to see how the press will cover his usual flubs, gaffes and howlers. Corporate news covering Putsch is pretty much like watching a cat finish up his business in the catbox. Same basic motions with the same basic intent. Watch your cat pushing the sand around and see if you don’t think of Sam Donaldson.

The White House has been talking about how George is gonna really get down to specifics on his Social Security privatization scheme, and let the light shine in. Which is White House speak for "He’s going to issue vague generalities and lie his fool head off." Sit and watch the speech with a calculator in your lap, since the whole thing about privatizing Social Security is basically an accounting argument. I’m betting he won’t give you enough information for you to actually use that calculator once during the speech.

And of course, he has some good reasons for this. Paul Krugman, the noted economist who writes a column for the New York Times, has been tapping keys and peering at the results for a month or so now, brought out of his sabbatical by a heartfelt need to warn the American people of what the so-called "Social Security Reform" really is – the biggest rip-off of the people by a nation’s leader in the history of the world.

Krugman noted that the administration used two sets of economic growth for when they talk about what will happen a) if they leave social security alone, or b) if they privatize it. Krugman was, of course, right; the White House has two entirely different scenarios that they use to explain what will happen to each program. And most of America’s media is too stupid and/or too timid to even mention that glaring discrepancy.

Option A: When they talk about Social Security "going bust" in forty years, they talk about an annual economic growth rate of 1.9% The only time since the civil war that the annual growth rate for five years was that low was 1929-1933, and the first two years actually had negative growth rate. It was called "The Great Depression", and it really messed things up. However, by 1936, economic growth was running about 6%. The Depression wasn’t over, but the economy was definitely regaining lost ground.

In order for the numbers to suggest that Social Security could have a minor shortfall, the government has to pretend that this abysmally low rate of economic growth will persist, unabated, for 40 years. It’s possible that the US might have had such numbers between, oh, say, 1835 and 1875, when a general lack of technological advances and a major war slowed things down. But unless George really screws things up so bad that the American economy can’t ever bounce back, it’s not in the cards.

Option B: When they talk about the privatization scheme, the growth rate magically increases to 7% for seventy years. That means the economy DOUBLES every decade. While the US has had years in which it had that much growth, it has never doubled in just one decade, let alone seven in a row.

If the economy grows at such a remarkable rate (the Dow would be somewhere around 13,000,000) and we don’t have runaway inflation, then, the Putschniks assure us, the cost of switching to private pension funds will only entail public borrowing of $20 trillion, and it might be solvent. Maybe. Assuming no Ken Lays or World-Coms, and assuming the government is scrupulous in monitoring the funds. And we all know how much George likes to have government tell investment business what it can and cannot do.

Most economists see a long-term growth rate of anywhere from 2.5% to 4%. At 2.5%, it might take a single point increase in FICA taxes to ensure perpetual solvency. At 3.5%, it’s perpetually solvent, easily clearing the 2060 "hurdle" when the proportion of retirees to workers is expected to peak.

Why do economists see that range? Simple: over the PAST 75 years, the economy grew at a 3.4% rate. That’s despite a rather shaky start (1929 wasn’t exactly a glamourous year for economists, see above). That includes several sharp recessions, one really big war and a herd of small to medium wars, and the usual idiotic mismanagements of other peoples’ money.

Try reversing the numbers, and you’ll see the audacity of the scam being perpetrated here. Pretend we have the current system AND a 7% growth rate. OK, I know what I said about that rate of growth. Just pretend HARD.

Social Security would have such a huge trust fund it could cover the national debt. In fact, with that kind of growth rate, there wouldn’t be a national debt, and Laffer and all the other supply side economists would have their faces on Rushmore.

Of course, the two times they’ve tried implementing Laffer’s crackpot notion of trickle-down economics, the economy has just sort of sat there and blinked stupidly. Supply siders always forget that 50,000,000 people with a $100 tax cut each are going to buy a hell of a lot more shoes than 100 people with a $50,000,000 tax cut each. They always turn it into a class war thing. And so it flunks, because they forget that if they want to sell shit, there have to be people out there with money to buy it.

Pretending that privatization is hit with a 75 year Great Depression is even more fun. The cost of funding the switch over jumps well above $60 trillion, and probably goes broke anyway, because in a Great Depression that lasts 70 years, most countries don’t have $60 trillion to set aside for the venture capitalists to play with.

My advice, if the privatization scheme goes through, is to take your money and start talking to that fellow from Kenya who keeps showing up in your email asking you to help him recover his family fortune. That sounds like a much sounder and more honest deal than the one Putsch is offering.

One final tip for the SOTU: bring a good book.