I wonder if privatizing Social Security means a loss of money already paid in?

[Tired Trucker]

McCain has never said he was going to privatize social security. I wish he would, because I'd be all for such a move. But he has made no such proposal, the statement last night that he had was a democrat lying, as usual.

The market has it's ups and downs, but if you look at it on the long term, 40 year periods, the trend has always been up. Personally I'd be for being able to opt out of it all together and have the ability to put that money in my 401k instead. Why shouldn't we be able to have that choice? Isn't it our money after all? I don't know about you, but I worked hard for that money.

I believe Social Security was a bad idea in the first place. It probably seemed like a great idea at the time when FDR implemented it. People pretty much died off in their 50's back then and never collected it. Also, the families were huge back then. My grandmother was one of 13 children, my grandfather had 7 siblings. These days people are having no more than 2 kids and they are living into their 90's. The situation has flipped now, there will soon be just as many people collecting it as there are people paying in. It wasn't designed for this, and there is no way it can remain economicaly viable that way.