What if we had "privatized" social security?

Mrs. Munn, my 1st grade teacher taught us to always do our own work

 

And if everyone owned their own business, you could be an investing model.

 

People can use this to calculate their SS rate of return.

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2007/01/approximating-social-securitys-rate-of.html

Is from a blog, so the accuracy may be debatable.

I came up with a low of 1.25 and a high of 1.75 Rate of return.

Not really sure if that is better or worst than my 401K (I have a high % in International and mid-risk stock).


Vs Stock market

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Total ROR (first % is for price appreciation, second % is for dividends)

http://observationsandnotes.blogspot.com/2009/03/average-annual-stock-market-return.html

 

Maybe you would. But for most people it works like this -

Something goes up a lot in price
Get excited, buy it when it's hot
It goes down in price
Get depressed, sell it when it is cold

That means load up on technology in 1999, panic in 2003 and sell, buy real estate funds in 2006, panic in 2008 and sell, buy bonds now.

Oh yeah and rush to buy Facebook in 2012 because you know -- you know! -- it's a guaranteed money maker.

 

I wouldn't give them any flipping option at all. If you did privatize, the only investment option would be the U.S. market (stocks, bonds, other assets possibly too). Actually world market would be better but I assume not possible politically.

 

I agree but would most republicans allow for this? Or would that be considered "big government" telling people what to do?

Also how hard would Investment firms lobby against that?

 

Nah, that would be a "safe" option, I agree it should be available. But what you describe would not give you much more than a Social Security Rate of return.

I would allow for a little less safe option of Stock Spiders. Not allowing buying specific stocks, just buying into the full market. In the long run good stocks should out weight the bad stocks.

 

That's not even close to the biggest problem

 

Since when is Social Security a retirement fund?

 

You're acting as if the words "social" and "security" have meanings.

 

I understand that SS has undergone some pretty serious "mission creep" over the years, but the fact is, that it's conceptually different from a retirement plan. "Risk" (however small) isn't really an option for a program designed to save the poor from spending their old age in bread lines.

In other words, much like Medicare, SS would be best served by (eventually) taking a lot less from employees/employers while applying increasingly strict means testing to focus the "insurance" that this program should be on the people that need it to survive.

Whether you take the rest of the money and force people to invest (or let them do with it what they wish) it is something I leave open for discussion

 

Like I said... Mission Creep.

The problem with mission creep is that it's very very hard to take back what you've now given out.

 

When did people not dying when they are supposed to become mission creep?

2 words solution. Death Panels.

I blame the Reps for making that a bad thing.

 

Another Solution



For all 70 year olds.

One per week, Pay Per View Event. (Help fund Medicare).

The survivors get to collect Social Security for the rest of their lives.