Remember in 2004 George W. and Republicans were pushing to change the Social Security entitlements and have?

[Poohcat1]

As I recall, the advice would not have been to invest in the stock market, but to make personal investments with the money now paid to social security. In otherwords, what he was saying is that the government can not afford (without raises social security taxes a lot), to pay people what they by law have coming in the future. The SS system is going broke and WILL REQUIRE a tremendous increase either in taxes or some major changes as to who will be eligible for it and at what age. Investments into sound financial packages would be better...even if the market sometimes goes crazy like it is doing now. It won't be long before younger people (45 yrs or so old) will not have a prayer of collecting SS, so you had best make your own plans. IRA's that are protected by FDIC, savings accts, investment in steady and salable assets etc are indeed the best way to go. If you want to mess with investments in the open market, then bonds are always safer even though they pay a lower percentage. Don't blame Bush or the repubs. The social security program was written with to many loopholes in the first place and needs change drastically. I do disagree with the idea that ss should be privatized. Although private businesses usually do a better job of managing risk than does the government, the oversight needed to protect us would be very expensive, so odds are we would gain nothing.