Censored Social Security Book Back in Print

When his book, “The Looting of Social Security: How The Government is Draining America’s Retirement Account,” was published by a New York publisher in 2004, economist and author, Dr. Allen W. Smith, thought his long battle to expose the truth about the Social Security trust fund was almost won.  But that book was destined to meet with foul play and be removed from the market before many people had the opportunity to read it.

Early reviews revealed just how provocative the book was going to be.  The Boston Globe reported,  “... With dismal clarity, Smith lays out the step-by-step history of how a national pension plan was transformed into an outright shakedown of working people,” and ALA Booklist said, “Smith has written a scathing account of massive fraud on the part of our nation's leaders, who have plundered every cent of the Social Security Trust Fund surplus that was specifically earmarked for the retirement of the baby boomers.”

On February 26, 2004, Smith appeared on CNBC, to respond to Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who had called for Social Security benefit cuts the previous day.  Dr. Smith held his book in front of the camera and said, as forcefully as he could, “Alan Greenspan should be ashamed of himself for what he is not telling the American people.” Smith now believes that this public criticism of the Fed chairman may have been the final nail in the coffin of his new book, which was very critical of Greenspan’s role in making the looting of the trust fund possible.

A few weeks after Dr. Smith’s controversial appearance on CNBC, the book mysteriously disappeared from bookstores, nationwide, and was listed as “unavailable” by Amazon.com.  Smith tried to get the rights to the book reverted back to him so he could publish his message elsewhere, but his publisher refused to surrender the rights.  When he finally regained the rights to the book, several years later, Professor Smith vowed to re-publish the book under an arrangement that would guarantee that the book remained in print for as long as anyone wanted to read it.

The book has just been published by Ironwood Publications, in its original form, along with a new forward written by Dr. Victor Stoltzfus, President Emeritus, Goshen College, and an afterword written by Dr. Smith that brings the book up to date.