Should Social Security be optional?

[mmonk]

Instead of something mandated such as Social Security, should it be replaced with a plan that people can decide to just privately invest or not invest at all?

[Lasher]

1. HELL no. n/t

[Bobbieo]

2. Double Hell - No!!!

[flordehinojos]

12. Triple Hell No!

[XemaSab]

20. Quadruple HELL NO!

[Lasher]

24. That's the most amens I've gotten for awhile.

Do I hear a quintuple hell no?

[question everything]

38. A quintuple Hell NO

The reason is that we are not Republicans. We are not going to let people die in the street just because they were not smart or disciplined enough to save for their old age.

And people will not do it. They'd rather spend money on "stuff" - look at the recent reports about the ballooning credit card debt - that save. But, hey, all this spending save our economy from recession and, I suppose, keep many of their jobs at K-Mart safe

[Lasher]

45. Right, we're not going to let people die in the street.

At least not in great enough numbers to awaken the national consciousness.

And it's not fair to subsidize the later years of only those who squandered money all their lives.

[blondeatlast]

81. Sextuple Hell no! nt

[FormerDittoHead]

66. Fuck no. n/t

[cyclezealot]

3. cant think of a faster way to bankrupt it for all

Instead you want to pay into a plan that will not guarantee benefits for the duration of your life. ? I think you must have not thought that one out fully.

[mmonk]

4. Nobody knows where I'm going with this yet?

[cali]

5. sure, I know where you're going with it.

You're making a comparison of SS and mandated health insurance.

[mmonk]

7. Very good.

The same type of scare tactics were used against it's implementation that are being used against "mandated" health insurance. Scare tactics were also used against President Clinton rolling back Reagan/bush tax cuts also ( would wreck the economy and "growth"). We're never going to go from point A to point B without trying. There will always be those that will try "fear of trying" as a technique for the status quo.

[killbotfactory]

17. It's not the same at all

Social security does NOT force us to buy into a private system, which will then exploit us. A mandate for health insurance will, and that's wrong, because I don't trust our current government to regulate the industry properly and they will inevitably screw over their customers.

I would much rather have a certain portion of all our taxes go in to fund a single payer plan for everybody. Let the private insurance companies compete with that, if they can.

edit:

Look at mandated car insurance. These companies can freely discriminate based on nothing more than age, gender, and zipcode. People who have these plans are scared to use them for fear that their rates will skyrocket. Or look at the success of insurance companies in the wake of Katrina. These companies can't be trusted. I think government run, or non-profit company run, plans should be available as alternatives to the private market in these instances.

[mmonk]

30. That's true without one of the options being a government plan

patterned after medicare.

[killbotfactory]

34. When we get to that point, start talking about mandates

Not before. Acting like it is the most important thing in the healthcare debate right now is asinine. I don't trust the government to regulate the industry well enough for mandates to be a sound idea.

[Freddie Stubbs]

49. There is a big difference:

Social Security did not replace private pension and other retirement plans.

[mmonk]

59. Fear tactics are the thrust of my post.

The beginnings of the Social Security sounded alot like fear of a national health care plan.

[annabanana]

6. Yup. And you're 100% correct! The insurance companies

have perpetuated the biggest, longest lived scam on the American people in history. When every penny of "profit" is a pill stolen from a sick person, or a treatment denied, it is way past time to nationalize!

[katmondoo]

8. You scare me with that

It is the only really good program we have left. The repukies have been wanting to destroy SS since the time of FDR. Please never say this again.

[mmonk]

28. I'm not advocating getting rid of it.

I'm talking about the Obama people tryng to scare people about a national health insurance program. I'm using it as an example of history whereby opponents predicted all sorts of costs to the people.

[Double T]

9. NEVER!

The wall street and corporate criminals want to get their grubby hands on EVERYONE's retirement funds; this can NEVER be allowed to happen.

[anitar1]

10. Social Security has never been in trouble. The evil ones

try the old scare tactics and many people worry about it. I wish people had the brain power to do some research instead of falling for the crap.

[Adelante]

11. The health care system should be replaced with one similar to Social Security

Point taken.

[Hieronymus]

21. For sure.

[Zynx]

13. Social Insurance is not a retirement plan,

People have never understood this for some reason.

[cornermouse]

19. I bet the people who had invested in Enron thought that too...

right up to the point that Lay and Enron went belly up. They lost all their retirement money.

More to the point, looking at the wild gyrations of the stock market I would say something is rotten and there could easily be more Enron type scandals on the horizon.

[Common Sense Party]

57. I don't understand your post.

The previous poster was correct: Social Security is not the same as retirement savings and investments. Everyone still needs to do that for himself/herself. Social Security is an insurance policy, originally designed just to help those who, through misfortune, would not have ANY other income during retirement.

The only people who lost everything in Enron were the people stupid enough to not diversify their investments. Some Enron employees CHOSE to put 100% of their own 401(k) contributions into Enron stock, rather than in well-diversified mutual funds available in their plan. So they were solely depending on Enron not only for their paychecks but also for their reitirement. Foolish.

The wild gyrations of the stock market? That's what stock markets are SUPPOSED to do. Things are bidded up, bidded down; it cannot go in a straight line. Gyrations and volatility are the best friends of someone investing regularly for the long-term.

[cornermouse]

60. Not a hundred points or more at a time they aren't.

You must be very young.

[Common Sense Party]

65. A hundred points on the Dow is not even 1%. This isn't 1987.

And age has nothing to do with wisdom.

[Zynx]

68. Thank you.

The stock market can move by a larger amount of points than there even were during the crash of 1929 with little consequence. It is only about 3%. Point swings have nothing to do with stock market moves. Only percentages matter. Since 2002, volatility has been historically low, this year not withstanding.

[Common Sense Party]

70. People hear "two hundred points" and they think it's a big deal.

In 1987, the Dow dropped 500 points in a day, it was a big deal--that was 22% then.

Today, 500 points isn't even 5%. It's like 3.7%.

I know that to people who are very close to retirement, or already in retirement, a drop of 2 or 3 or 5% can seem VERY significant. Painfully so. But that's why they should have an income plan in place, so that the assets providing income over the next few years aren't in the stock market.

Two books I'd highly recommend to anyone interested are:

http://www.amazon.com/Buckets-Money-Retire-Comfort-Safe...

http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Set-Retire-Financial-Strate...

[Historic NY]

14. Your kidding right.........

what do you do when your private plan leaves you with nothing.

[dugggy]

39. You should have scrimped more, watched your pennies

and saved more, like the rest of us?

Your personal savings account will keep increasing by the
magic of compounding interest and never reduce much less go to zero.

[cornermouse]

44. Dear Dugggy

You wouldn't believe how fast and far a stroke, or a heart attack, or an accident which puts you in the hospital for a week or so will take your personal savings account down and that's with insurance. If you spend a few days in ICU, most people will be broke before they are released. That's the magic of the unexpected.

[dugggy]

51. A serious health problem is certainly a big problem

in any one's financial situation. However how many people under 45
experience a heart attack, stroke or cancer? Very very very few.

When I was under 45, I scrimped to the point where I could save half
of my mediocre wages. I drove 10 year old used cars and lived in cheapest
housing I could find. 12 years later I retired! But yes, if I
developed a serious health problem, I could be wiped out. In the
meanwhile I am on easy street. The scrimping in my youth is paying
off big time. All that paid off eventually. Now I and the wife
go on a cruise atleast once a year.

[cornermouse]

54. Dear Duggy.

Enjoy your cruises while they last. One serious illness can take $100,000+ away from you very easily. Very few people work good enough jobs to accrue $100,000 in their bank accounts no matter how thrifty they may be. And as far as your contention that very very few people experience a heart attack, stroke or cancer before the age of 45? I don't know whether the link will work but here goes.

http://www.cancer.org/downloads/stt/CFF2007ProbDevelInv...

From birth to 39, your chance of developing cancer is 1 in 70 for females, 1 in 49 for males
From 40 to 59, chances are 1 in 12 for females, 1 in 11 for males
Please note that these statistics, as I read it, do not include basal or squamous cell carcinoma or a carcinoma in situ.

Note: This is Only for cancer, not illnesses such as muscular dystrophy or traumatic accidents.

Bottom line, we aren't as safe and secure as you seem to think.

[dugggy]

55. so the 48 out of 49 males could do well on embarking

on a financial independence program.

Almost all the young people I know are living beyond
their means. They drive late model cars, they have all the latest
gadgets, clothes matching latest fashion fads, they don't scrimp
on anything. And that includes my own kids.

I am not saying every single person can gain financial nirvana.
What I am saying is that overwhelming majority can in their
younger years. The best time to do this is between 25 & 45. Then
watch your money compound over decades.

For those unfortunate few who run into catastrophic health
problems, the federal government should pick up their medical bills.
The rest of us fortunate folks have no excuse for getting old in
poverty.

[Common Sense Party]

69. Absolutely, 100%, completely agree.

It is such a crying shame--a travesty--that we are graduating kids from high school with no understanding of how finances and investments work.

[dugggy]

71. Thank you...for one voice of reason

you made my day.

[cornermouse]

74. Dear Duggy

That (cancer) is but one cause of serious medical bills and you chose to narrow your window of opportunity (age) and ignore the age 40 and above on even that little. Burns, traumatic injuries (head, and all the rest), the muscular dystrophy diseases, heart attacks, strokes (yes, they do happen to people of all ages) are just a few more of the possibilities. I thought about getting more government statistics but decided against it because it doesn't matter what I say, you've chosen your doctrine and you're going to stick to it. The next time you go to a hospital look around. You won't see only people below the age of 24 and above the age of 45. You'll see all ages without exception.

Why don't people realize how lucky they were or are? Whatever happened to "there but for the grace of God, go I"?

[dugggy]

75. I actually worked in a hospital to pay for my education

My job was to serve food trays to patients. So, I got to see ALL PATIENTS.
My memory says OVERWHELMING percentage of them were senior citizens. But
then what do I know, I only worked there for minimum wages.

But again getting back to your point, what is the excuse for those who
never got seriously sick during 25 to 45 years of age to have not scrimped
and saved and invested for their old age? Even if that group is only about
half of the population?

Well, I know exactly what the problem is...living beyond your means.

[cornermouse]

76. Well, Duggy.

I know for a fact that your memory is either incorrect or out of date.

By the way, have you ever seen how many adult women are earning close to minimum wage working days at "fun" places like fast food restaurants? Do you really think they or their families either for that matter have anything extra to put away? Oh wait. They're lazy bums who are running around buying all sorts of luxury items while living off the kindness and generosity of the government, aren't they.

[dugggy]

77. I started working at minimum wage...to pay for my degree

in engineering. Even with minimum wage, I was able to pay for food and shelter and
pay my tution and buy books. Even the minimum wage people in USA live far better
than 50% of middle class in other countries. So there is room to reduce your expenses.

One should use the minimum wage job as a stepping stone to better jobs by acquiring
higher skills. Don't make babies if you can't afford them. Take public transportation
instead of buying a car. There is a way if there is a will.

[cornermouse]

78. I've been there and done that too.

Ground level view of the female point of view. To some extent you're right about the "where there's a will, there's a way". I got out in spite of my husband. Every time I tried to bring the subject up he would fix things so I couldn't go. I had to wait till he went to work in another state before I could return to school behind his back. I, not he, will be paying off the loans for that for a long time. When I got a slightly better job, he quickly decided I wasn't paying my share of the bills. Never mind the fact that I was making land payments, trash, vet bills, feed, some groceries, (fast food salary) and anything else that popped up that he didn't feel like paying such as plumbing repairs. Later after I got a slightly better paying job, he "adjusted" the bills so that I also paid the electric bills and part of the heating bill. There is no way I could have reduced my expenses and a high of $6 an hour at that time didn't cover enough bills to live a wildly extravagant lifestyle.

A car is a necessity if you don't live in the same town as the school. Public transportation doesn't exist here. What school I got had to be somewhat limited. I couldn't get a traditional college degree. It would have been irresponsible to go that far in debt. And by the way, I went into health care after graduation.

[dugggy]

80. You did very well considering the obstacles

put in your way by your spouse. Best luck to you.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

47. You're kidding, right?

Because the only investment that won't reduce to zero are federally-insured savings accounts, which get a rate of about 1.5% right now -- less than the rate of inflation, so the magic of compound interest will yield less buying power than when you put it in.

Anything else, and you risk losing your investment.

[dugggy]

52. You could'nt be more wrong.

Long term savings should be put in long term CD's, not
a savings account. Current rate of interest is 4.6%.

A better place for your money is US Treasury 30 year bonds
if you have $10,000. They pay guaranteed 5% with no risk of
losing your money.

Please read my post above how I managed to achieve somewhat
of financial independence for my golden years.

[Common Sense Party]

67. What has to happen for your S&P 500 index fund to go to zero?

I'm not saying it CAN'T go to zero. Of course, that's POSSIBLE.

But what would have to happen for your S&P 500 index fund to go to zero, and you lose EVERYTHING?

[rasputin1952]

15. They actually tried something like this in GB, it failed miserably...

The gist of the situation was that people thought they could do better than the pension system, so at one point, they could opt out of the government system, and go private; the results were disastrous. Virtually all of those who had opted out of the govt system were wiped out for varying reasons, (poor investment strategies, fraud, etc), and they opted to get back into the govt system, AFTER they lost their butts.

The same thing would happen here...we've all seen what happens in the private sector, and while SS is not the best run program, (there is still a lot of problems w/congress grabbing any "extra" cash out of it to cover their massive expenditures, rather than reign in their largess), it is far better than returning to a constant state of poverty for many who would have nothing to rely on.

As for pro-investment/privacy proponents...they could take, say 5-7.5% of their net cash and invest it, (15% if they want to add what an employer puts into the system), and invest all they want, if they make out, they win win big, if they lose, they still have the cushion of SS to break the fall. I say that the vast majority (90%) would get skewered either in "fees" or outright fraud, and the market would/could go down to levels where they would lose everything. Then what? They would screech and cry about how the govt had to help them; that stuff happens all of the time, on a smaller scale now, but just think of millions crying about being "destroyed" and having nothing, you can almost hear the wailing now.

Want to see what happens when poor investments come down the pike? Just look at Wall Street, 4 major firms have borrowed money, to the tune of billions from the Chinese, British, Germans and Saudis just yesterday, to shore up the losses they are taking on a housing market that was known, years ago, to be inflated to the point of bursting.


We haven't seen anything yet, if this situation goes full tilt...be ready to see Breadlines and a severe Depression that will affect the entire world; and most likely make the great Depression look like a picnic.

[dugggy]

62. I agree with you that most people are lousy investors..but..

I think what the government should do is set up a pool similar
to CalPers which is CA's retirement pool. The goverment should
employ professional investors to invest conservatively such as
50% high quality bonds and 50% index funds. The return on such a mix
over last 40 years is over 4 times what the social security pays a
regular age retiree over his lifetime contributions & employers
contributions.

Then people should have the option to put their SS contributions
into this pool and the employers contributions will go into the
current system. The keyword is "option". The beauty part is when
the person dies, the accumulated value of his personal account
goes to his heirs.

[YvonneCa]

16. No...

...no, no.

[FlyingSquirrel]

18. No, and furthermore...

Zillionaires should be paying more into it than someone making $100,000 a year.

[maxanne]

22. false dichotomy

Nothing prevents people from making private investments.

If people opt out - who picks up the tab when their investments go down the toilet and they want to opt back in?


As for your attempted contrast between Social Security and buying private insurance, you'd have an excellent comparison IF we allowed Wall St. to take over Social Security. Then it would be controlled by people who have high paid lobbyists, and corporate donors to presidential campaigns - like health insurance companies do now.

Is that the goal? A level field of corruption?

[Lasher]

25. Correct, Social Security is more properly compared with single payer universal healthcare.

Individual mandate is a corruption of the true concept. The insurance companies are attempting, with success, to highjack the universal healthcare label.

More appropriate comparisons are these: Individual mandate is like privatized Social Security. If you like one you might be in favor of the other. The closest healthcare parallel to traditional Social Security is single payer.

[mmonk]

29. But there is a government option people can choose.

I see it as the only way we are going to get it on the table.

[Warren Stupidity]

32. what if the government option sucks?

And why wouldn't it? The money will flow into congress to ensure that the government plan is crap.

[mmonk]

33. Why are you for John Edwards?

[Warren Stupidity]

48. I disagree with his healthcare plan.

I also disagree with his qualified support of equal rights for all americans regardless of their sexual orientation. He is however, in my opinion, the best viable candidate running. That is why I support Edwards. I will continue to argue against mandated healthcare plans.

[Lasher]

46. Please elaborate.

Not trying to be a smartass, just trying to pick up what you're laying down.

[mmonk]

36. It would be a false dichotomy if private plans are the only choice.

I prefer single payer but if we can't have that across the board at first, offer a government plan to go against the private insurers. The point of the post though is more centered on fear. Fear was the biggest obstacle to Social Security by those that were against it at the time is was implemented

[dugggy]

72. For those who want to opt out, GOVERNMENT should run an

investment plan similar to what state of California is doing for
retired state employees. Because most people know beans about
investing. Then you can participate in this plan as a share holder
of any conservative growth+income fund. These type of funds have
excellent records for stability and returns over many decades. The
returns are far greater than what we get from our contributions+
your employers equal contribution from the social security system.

The system can be set up so 50% of money (your employers contribution)
goes into current social security system to cover current retirees and
the insurance part. The other 50% taken out of your paycheck can go into
the investment fund set up by the government. The politicians can't be
allowed to spend that money and that way when you die, any leftover
money can go to your heirs.

[no name no slogan]

23. No, because it's not just a pension plan

it's also covers the disabled as well as provide benefits to widows and orphans.

It's not a retirement plan, it's social insurance. BIG difference.

[Lurking Dem]

27. That point gets lost on a lot of folks.

It was never intended to be anything other than a safety net.

[Igel]

26. It used to be optional for ministers back in the '50s.

True, that's just a small number of people involved. Two of my bosses (when I worked for a church in the '80s) had opted out, one in the late '40s, the other a decade later.

The IRS was trying to collect back payroll taxes for them. The then-current IRS staff was astounded when official documentation was submitted saying that the pastor and asst. pastor were not only exempt from FICA in perpetuity, but prohibited from rejoining the system.

There was a bit of a bureaucratic wrangle over some self-employment, non-ministerial income that one of the pastors had. The IRS wanted to collect all the FICA for that income, but the documentation was very clear: The individuals were exempted, once and for all, because of their status in the ministry in, oh, '49 and '58, I think it was. Exempting their ministerial income but not other income would mean they were un-exempted, and the documentation didn't allow it--and the IRS couldn't show any law or regulation permitting it, much less mandating it. They finally gave up, after much wrangling. Oddly, the ministers had lost their copies of the documentation decades before; one branch of the IRS happily provided copies of the documentation in the ministers' IRS files, we copied the documentation and forwarded them to another dept. within the IRS. Gotta love bureaucracies.

I can't assume that the opt-out provision only applied to clergy.

[Warren Stupidity]

31. Not quite the same.

Mandates are still bullshit, even with the 'gummint option'. One of the strokes of genius behind roosevelt's social security system is that everyone is in the same boat. There aren't 50 different ss plans to choose from, and 30 different ways of paying for them. Everyone gets the same plan, everyone pays the same rate (up to the cap), and everyone pays through the payroll tax with the tax being split 50/50 worker/employer. Why everyone in the same boat? Because that way if the fucked up corrupt scam artists in washington try to fuck with our medicare they will damn well pay for it at the ballot box. It goes right into the 'third rail' category as an untouchable entitlement. Instead they want a complicated multi-choice scam of a plan so they can divide us into haves and have-nots, into premium, middle-class, and poor-folks plans, and use the tax cut bullshit campaigns they so dearly love to corrupt the poor folks plan by underfunding it while convincing the muddle-headed middle class that they should accept their big healthco overpriced under-served managed care cigna murder-by-spreadsheet idiocy. No. No. No. No. No. Medicare for everyone.

[Stop Cornyn]

35. Only if we elect Obama

[Tejanocrat]

37. Excellent point. Every Obama supporter should be ashamed to answer this question.

[Hekate]

40. People living paycheck to paycheck can't save that money &don't have the savvy to "invest" it either

There are an enormous number of jobs in this country that have no future and pay diddly squat: the adults working in them would love to have it be otherwise, but if you read Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich you'll see just what a trap they are in.

The number of jobs in the country that require the skill-set of a savvy investor are small, and for the rest of us the opportunities for being ripped off are extraordinarily large. You can have a PhD in English Lit or Physics and still be at the mercy of some Enron graduate.

How on earth can the majority of people "invest" in the stock market and depend on that for their old age? The very idea is obscene, especially for the lowest class of workers, who don't have enough money to hire the expertise.

Social Security is only in trouble because the Cons want us to think it is. We've paid ahead, and we've paid our dues. Social Security is supposed to be the safety net for all of us, and we were also supposed to have pensions from our jobs.

Which leads to my final thought: So many companies have bailed on their pension plans, broken their written promises to workers*, and generally left hundreds of thousands, if not millions of workers/retirees in the lurch, that I think employers should be paying pension money directly into Social Security. It's the corporations that can't be trusted: Social Security has been doing its job all along.
(*When unions negotiated for bigger pensions there was always a trade-off in salary or other benefits. That money was paid by the workers--they kept their side of the bargain. It was the corporations that didn't pay into the fund, or used it for management perks, or simply disappeared it when they declared bankruptcy.)

So in answer to your question, just in case I haven't been clear enough: HELL NO.

Hekate

[JeanGrey]

41. HELL NO!!!!

Are you joking?

[Occam Bandage]

42. No. That defeats the entire purpose of it.

[diane in sf]

43. If it was optional it wouldn't be social security.

[suston96]

50. Great line....

I have been arguing about Social Security for years and that is the best line I have ever read:

"If it was optional it wouldn't be social security."

[sandnsea]

53. Social Security has always been government

There's never been a private system in place doing the government job. It's not the same thing at all.

But note, there is still a bureaucratic system in place to qualify for disability insurance, just like there would be with single payer health care. There'd still be people denied health care.

[ProudDad]

56. "There'd still be people denied health care"

Oh, yeah?

Then why doesn't that happen in the majority of the civilized world that has elected Universal Single-Payer HEALTH CARE???

People are denied cosmetic services. People who are able to wait are asked to wait so that people who need care more can get it.

NO ONE in the Universal Single-Payer countries are denied necessary care!

Denial of necessary care is the rule in this benighted country by the corporate capitalist health insurance mafia...

[dugggy]

61. My cousin who lives in England recently travelled to India

to get his hip replacement. He got tired of the pain and the
waiting in the English healthcare system.

[ProudDad]

82. Most hip replacements are definitely

trumped by heart surgery.

The problem IS NOT the British Health SYSTEM -- it's the Tory (and new "Labour") underfunding of the British Health System. Your alleged "relative" should heavily lobby his/her MP...

The problem in USAmerika IS THE FOR-PROFIT Health "Insurance" SYSTEM which is ANYTHING BUT UNDERFUNDED. Rather that for-profit monster is sucking trillions from the economy while returning only substandard "health care" for most and gross profits for the capitalist masters at the very top...


And I'm also sure that your cousin didn't travel to India because of the British Health but rather because she/he wanted a medical vacation in India (medical "vacations" are all the rage now -- especially among a lot of USAmerikans) and that he/she could get a 2 week vacation and the operation for less than the elective operation would cost from a private British doctor.



On Edit: A personal aside; as one of the (probably by now) 50,000,000 uninsured in this benighted, sick, stingy excuse for a country I'd be fucking overjoyed to have the OPTION to wait a while to get my pains taken care of. I don't have that option -- one serious accident or illness and I'm ruined...and for anything less than a serious accident or illness -- I don't get SHIT -- I just get to pay for a fucking series of wars for oil, corporate welfare and too many freeways!

[Tactical Progressive]

58. SocSec should be mandatory, with only collection optional

As in, 'Since you hate the goddam guvermint so much, why don't you stop collecting "welfare"!'

Right-wingers, including libertarians, practically consider SocSec to be welfare, so I think they should always have the option not to collect it, giving the rest of us the option to ridicule and harrass them over not doing so. That might help when getting into a discussion-that-can-never-be-won with these nutcases, because every thought in their head is nothing more than selfish disingenuousness. Don't collect if you don't believe in it, unless you're just a self-serving betrayer of your own principles.

What's that? You paid into it? Well, I paid into your ridiculously oversized military budget - can I get my money back? No? Well then you're already ahead of me so what are you bitching about?

But other than that, absolutely not; Social Security should be mandatory and should be expanded.

[OhioChick]

63. No. n/t

[Zorra]

64. We'd end up paying for the people that ended up 65 and broke without

any retirement plan.

And there would be a whole lot of them. Just look at all the people in this country that are in major credit card debt, and/or have a house in foreclosure because of poor financial management.

So many naive people would get fleeced by unscrupulous capitalists we'd have a major national disaster on our hands.

[Tejanocrat]

73. Neither Social Security not universal health care ought to be "optional." Obama should be ashamed!

[GreenTea]

79. Good sound republican-libertarian thinking....Right and when millions

invest in a manipulated stock market instead and have nothing.....millions walking the streets will we happily support them with our tax dollars as the robber barons in the stock market get rich and pay no taxes....The great FDR knew it should not be voluntary, so it will be there when one retires....but Bush & the republican are trying desperately to bankrupt SS so people like yourself will urge to privatize....Privatization just another way the corporations are drooling to control and get their hands on peoples retirement and pensions....Bush is all for it. And so are you?