Why are so many americans against privatizing social security?

[967]

Lets put the right/left spin aside and look at the facts.
1. It's my money not the governments so i should be able to invest it as i choose.
2. Investing in the market allows me to take advantage of compound interest unlike our current system which is a pay as you go system and gets a 0% rate of return.
3. Democrats love to lie and say that 2008 would have buried everybody but seem to forget that "stocks" are only one piece of any investment portfolio and is the only asset class that crashed in 2008. Major investment classes listed below for 2008.
-Stocks s&p 500 -37%
-Long term treasury bonds+34%
-Gold+5%
-Short term bonds+6.5%

As you can see 3 out of the 4 major investment classes MADE MONEY in 2008 and a well balance diversified portfolio that year took MINOR LOSES and in some cases made money that year. The only people that lost a lot of money in 2008 are people that had all there eggs in one basket and then blamed wall street rather then there own poor investment decisions. In addition to being able to have a lot more then the average $1300$ a month social security check that most americans get i would have millions waiting for me in a lump sum when i turn 65 rather then the government deciding when i get my money. I don't get the mindset of people that want the government to control there money and anyone who says that social security has pulled Millions of americans out of poverty in a LIAR because i say that social security has put millions of americans into poverty by robbing them of the millions that they would have had the government allowed them to get 7% to 10% a year compound interest investing in the market on there own throughout there lives.
@patrick with all due respect your short answer is retarded. Bernie madoff and the others you listed are individuals that decided to rob people. US treasury bonds are controlled by the full faith and credit of the US government and are not controlled by one person. The price of gold bullion is controlled by the entire world considering it is traded in every major country. The S&P 500 which is the most often referred to index that is the top 500 US companies is offered by many reliable investment companies such as Vanguard who it's founder Jack Bogle started in 1976 and is considered the most reliable company out there. Your obviously very uneducated and watch too much MSNBC. For future reference do not respond to my posts unless you have a brain and know the basics about investing which you do not!!
@Flower It's people like you that i hate. Just because the government calls something a tax does not mean it belongs to them. My money belongs to me and your money belongs to you not the government. When will retards like you realize that the government does not create wealth it takes it from one person threw taxation and gives it to another WAKE UP DUMMY.

[Patrick4024]

Remember people like Bernie Madoff and companies like Enron. The wrong people getting retirement funds could ruin a person who has worked hard their whole life retirement.

[779]

Look up interest rates:
When Jimmy (Peanut) Carter was President, I got 18% interest on my bank CDs...
When Daddy Bush was President, it was 8% - 10%.
Within six months of being elected President, Clinton cut the rates to around 3%. At present, I can not get even 1% on CDs.

If there was free market, the rates should be about the same as when Mr. Peanut was President, as ACTUAL INFLATION is more than 20% per annum! Check grocery/gasoline prices for the past 10 years...It shocks me every single time I go to the grocery store.

So, O.K., you ask a very good question. The only answer is because people go to Public Schools which teach people to not think, to not reason, to not ask intelligent questions but to be good citizens! The same thing Fidel told Cubans or Nikita told Russians: be a good citizen.

When I was young, I proved over and over that if allowed to deposit into a savings account the amount of money paid into Social Security that by the time a person reached 65 years of age they would have more than $1,000,000 and by withdrawing only the accrued interest each year they would have more money to live on than when they were working and be able to leave that One Million Dollars to their spouse/children.

Any one that know how to use a calculator or use the internet can quickly come up with the numbers, which means that people are thoroughly BRAINWASHED by the politicians.

It is not the old people who would lose out, but the politicians would no longer have those hundreds of billions of dollars to control.

Vote Obama OUT!!!

[696]

There has NEVER been ANY "investment instrument" AS BAD as Social Security.
If you COPIED SS exactly - except you made it totally voluntary and just OFFERED people a chance to participate, you would go to prison.
As for stocks:
> Take the WORST POSSIBLE case - you retired right after the crash; and
> Your 40 years of Social Security "contributions" had ALL gone into a DJIA portfolio instead of SS.
Are you glad Democrats saved you from THAT? Are you sure? If you HAD done that, your return would be about 1000% MORE than you can hope to get from SS.

[Keith]

Few people have the skill to invest wisely.

[brenton s]

I work with Fix Social Security Now and we question the wisdom of private accounts in the form that politicians have proposed. We invite you to tell us where we are wrong.

The traditional complaint is feeble: people will lose everything. Since 1937 when the Social Security system started, the stock market has outperformed the investment policy of SS by roughly 50 to 1. In a downturn it is 25 to 1. So you should ignore people who talk about risk of losing money. In the market there is a risk of losing money. In Social Security there is a certainty.

The real problem is in the details, and the of honesty in the proposals. There are a number of privatiztion plans, none of them track to your description above. Our critique of Newt's plan is fairly consistent with all of them. in the right direction.

1) It is too expensive
2) It increases the footprint of government on the capital markets
3) These accounts are less efficient than what is already available in the public market
4) It introduces guarantees to the system which could bankrupt the entire government
5) It shifts the burden of Social Security from the covered worker to the general taxpayer.

http://www.fixssnow.org/contentdetails_N...ty_53.aspx
(Send your complaints to Joe@FixSSNow.Org)

FACTS :

1) you have to find a way to pay legacy benefits once you direct payroll taxes to an private account. The 'transition cost' in 2005 was about 3.8 trillion. If you continue to pay benefits from the general fund all you have done is changed the form of financing and gained nothing. Your $1300 more exists only to the extent that you bail on legacy benefits.

2) A private investment account is a savings vehicle designed to accumulate wealth. Social Security is insurance which is designed to manage risk of old-age. These are not the same thing. Anyone can get a savings vehicle today in fact they are heavily subsidized.

3) Every plan to privatize Social Security uses some kind of managed investment index or list. This is an invitation to abuse of the political process. It is pretty easy to guess which investment gets on the list Solyndra or Phillip Morris.

4) This comes from personal experience. The shift from insurance to a retirement system is huge. Insurance is about managing groups. Retirement systems are about individuals. Retirement systems are much more complicated. So we are placing a failing govt program with a bigger more complicated version. More government isn't the answer.

When we put these concerns to voters, I have yet to find anyone who wants a private account. At the end of the day they want out of Social Security, and see a private account as a step. Private accounts are just the bigger-govt, more expensive version of Social Security. If you think it has problems now, just wait until it is bigger.

[flower]

1. It is the government's money because it is a tax and it is paid out in benefits to 56 million people every month. When you qualify for disability, divorce, retirement or death you or your family gets benefits. Your employer contributes more than you do. If there were no Social Security, your employer would be off the hook.
2. Unfortunately the federal reserve has lowered interest rates so the banking customer is losing out. I remember when passbook savings paid 5%. Social Security is not an investment, it is insurance.
3. If you were invested in the wrong stocks, you would have lost. You have IRAs, CDs and 401Ks for investing.
4. What happens to your retirement if your money manager makes the wrong investments and still takes a commission. Is the government to make up the loss or pay the broker fees?
5. As I said, why should your employer contribute 6.2% in Social Security if you are getting a return on his money? You would have to give the employer some of the profit.

Why are you worried about social security when your income tax is 5 x as high. Dont you want to eliminate that too ?