2004 George W wanted to do away with Social Security and have people invest in the stock market.?

[RWLake]

The importance of social security equates to the importance each person attributes to their own retirement investment plan. When we think about retirement in most cases we are talking about a long term investment. That being the case, is it wiser to invest in vehicles that provide a low rate of return or one that has a more modest return? I believe most intelligent investors understand any portfolio that returns a 2-3% rate of return will result in failure. If your investments can deliver a 6-7% average rate of return you will have a much better chance of success. So we come to investing in the current Social Security portfolio or find a way to improve. As you probably are aware Social security has always provided a low (2-3%) return. If we could invest in a moderate portfolio we could expect more in the 6-7% range. Certainly seems so make more sense to me. Of course. our current economic mess might indicate to some that social security should not be changed. That's when the wise person understands the meaning of "Long Term Investing". During our working years what the account is worth tomorrow is not that important. What matters is what it is worth when the time comes to retire That's where we find there is a huge difference between returns of 3% compared to 7.