Extreme hypocrisy...

AARP (American Assoc of Retired People) has been running ads attacking Bush's plans for Social Security private accounts. James K. Glassman at AEI writes...

...But the AARP is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It says that stock and bond investing is like playing a slot machine at the same time it promotes stock and bond investing by selling thirty-eight mutual funds to its members and taking a cut from each sale...

...AARP's funds include far riskier choices than advocates of Social Security reform would ever offer to American workers: for example, a Latin American stock fund, a junk-bond fund, and a fund that holds shares of companies based in such highly volatile markets as Indonesia and Russia.

AARP Services, the lucrative business arm of the AARP, entered into a deal with Scudder Investments to sell mutual funds to its members as part of a special affinity program. According to a prospectus, Scudder pays AARP an annual fee for the use of its trademark that ranges from .05 percent to .07 percent of assets. That can come to a lot of money. One fund alone, Scudder Growth & Income AARP, manages $5 billion...

Does anyone remember whose "law" it is that all organizations not explicitly conservative will become leftist in time? AARP is a good example. It is far to the left of the people it claims to represent. And, like many "non-profit" groups, its main purpose is to provide cushy high-paying jobs to people who sneer at jobs in the business world. A world which is not only are disgustingly capitalist, but has a horrid practice of favoring those whose work is actually effective, and even discarding those who can't perform! You can be assured that you will never hear that the board at AARP is bringing in new management because the organization has not been serving the interests of seniors effectively.
(Thanks to Betsy Newmark)

Update: We're going after them! Wahoooo! AARP in the crosshairs! What a great time to be alive... Posted by John Weidner at February 20, 2005 09:15 AM