Jewish World Review

The debate about whether to included private investment accounts as a part of Social Security got ratcheted up another notch with the release of the Presidential Commission's report. Yet the hot-button issue of whether to invest part of Social Security's money in the stock market does not replace the basic question of how to balance the under funded program. Creating personal accounts would change the timing and magnitude of the program's deficits -- currently projected to be $17 trillion over the next 75 years -- but would not, on its own, eliminate them.

It is more than a tad ironic that some members of Congress are pushing for a temporary "payroll tax holiday" at the same time the Presidential Social Security Commission is trying to find a way to pay for the trillions of dollars in unfunded benefits the nation's retirement system is facing.

Is there any hope for peace in the Middle East? Maybe not, if the political and cultural equation stays the same. Maybe yes, if technology can change the facts on that bloody ground. Just as the telegraph, radio, television and, now, the Internet have brought profound change to the West, so the same changes will come, eventually, to the Arab Middle East. History suggests that telecommunications will push the Arabs, too, in a more prosperous and peaceable direction.