Reply #35: what will happen to the stockmarket as the babyboomers retire?

[flaminbats]

most of the babyboomers I know have something invested in the stock market, and most of them plan to start pulling money out when they retire. most of their kids will not be making enough to invest, let alone thinking about retirement!

Think of how bad things will become if these same people start putting those FICA dollars into a stock-market in which the babyboomers are also pulling out trillions in order to retire. I think the stock market is great, and I believe smart investments should be made. But I don't believe that the government should be using our dollars collected from the FICA tax to do this. Ultimately I believe it will sink the private sector while reducing the retirement dollars available to help those who either failed to invest or made bad investments.

If we wish to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent, I believe we can do this by increasing the payroll tax. We can give younger voters a reason to support this by extending Medicare coverage to them. Thus the program remains solvent, while more healthy taxpayers are insured. The best investment our government can make for the future is to pay down the national debt. This reduces the amount wasted every year in interest on the debt. It also makes yearly surpluses available, and which can be used to keep Social Security solvent as the babyboomers begin to retire.