Stock answers not good enough

[struggle4progress]

Tom Blackburn
Palm Beach Post Columnist
Monday, January 10, 2005

<snip> President Bush's Social Security plan — still more a propaganda blitz than a blueprint — seems to be headed toward creating more of what the private sector already created under 401(k). Why it's prudent to put even more retirement eggs in a rapidly filling basket is just another of the questions the propaganda has ignored.

Nothing ever stopped people from investing part of the money they have left over after paying into Social Security. Statistically, most of them will get a better return from their investments. But some will get nada or too little to survive on. Those are the ones for whom Social Security was created, and, since we can't predict who they will be, everyone participates.

Mr. Bush is talking about changing that, so that people can invest some of their Social Security payments on their own. He wants to do it, he says, because Social Security is projected to run out of money in 30 or 40 years. He keeps saying "crisis," but he doesn't say how taking money out of a system can make it more solvent. <snip>

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/01/10/m16a_blackburncol_0110.html