The US Politics |OT|

[Machiavellian]

Baalzamon said:

Machiavellian said:

What are you saying, that you can manage your retirement better than social security.  If this is the case then I have no argument since I have both a IRA and 401K.  If you are saying every American can and will do this then that is being very optimistic.  The whole point of SS is that a large portion of Americans do not manage their retirement and thus do not have anything to help them when they become retirement age and out of work.  I would be in favor of being able to take my SS dollars and manage it myself if that was an option but I am not sure if I am willing to have it privatize unless I see a comprehensive plan that I can agree on.

My argument here actually isn't anything to do with people being able to guide their own investments in social security (nor do I really think that should be allowed, as you WILL have horror stories).

No, my argument is that the government could very easily be investing social security funds in broad market index funds, vastly increasing the average return on investment, and thus improving the amount of money available to retirees.

So you would trust the government to invest SS funds instead of the more safer bonds way they do today.  There is probably a reason they do not do this today but I am sure it has to do with debt since the government use SS for those special interest bonds they sell.  If they were to go your route then how SS is used and invested would need to radically change.