Why don't we hear about privatizing Social Security & tieing it to the stock market anymore?

[the phantom]

This was all the rage just a few short years back. This was one of "W"'s pet projects if I remember correctly - he tried ramming it through Congress a few years ago. I haven't heard his heir-apparent John McCain mention anything about it lately either. Maybe it was...... do you suppose... a.... a... BAD IDEA to begin with?????

[Hero of the Stupid]

Yes, who wants the anxiety of that noise?

[Bob H]

Because the Democrats keep raiding the fund to pay for their hokey social experiments! They are like mad scientists from a 'B' science fiction movie.

[don_vvvvito]

do you really thin the stock market will continually drop forever?it will rebound like it always does and will eventually rise higher than any previous high.......

[Agent 99]

Thats not a bad idea. I trust Wall Street any day of the week over Nancy Pelosi and her greedy cronies. The stock market actually has accountability, unlike the govt.

[Laissez-Faire Guy]

Nonsense. Over any real length of time, the market is the best investment possible. Even with the bear market today, if you had invested your SS savings in the market 20 years ago, you'd have fantastically more money available for your retirement then you will under SS now. 2 years from now, this bear market will just be a memory, with the market fully recovered and at levels much higher then today. I'll bet you (the asker) $100 that I'm right.

What's really a bad idea is to operate under the current plan. Keep promising benefits with no way to pay for them in the future. The demographics just don't work.

I don't know about you, but I'm putting as much into my private retirement account as I can, especially at today's bargain prices, and then assuming that SS will only be able to deliver on 75% of the benefits they are promising to me.

[Sabrina F]

because when they have to pay it back for the war ,it will be bankrupt, and Bush made sure that only the CEO in the stock market will get all their money even if it means everyone looses their life savings, which has already happened.
I would not put a nicke in there again. McCain is too stupid, he is 70yrs old and still does not know how it has successfully operated, he was just criticizing it. Bush and his dad both wanted to get their hands on it> And w did, now its a mess, He probably has less mess in his bathroom, oh but hten that would be someones else job to take care of! IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT.

[jamesfentress44]

An absolute bad idea....we would pile our money into a
private company...they say they've gone broke, file bankruptcy
and fly the coop! Our life's savings are gone

[Greg]

It would cost too much. Converting 2-3% of social security to private accounts would have cost 1 trillion dollars in 2001, and after running up public debt by 7 trillion, we are paying an additional 100 billion a year (270 billion total) just to service interest on the debt, and the economy isn't growing fast enough for that not to hurt.

[Matt S]

It was not a bad idea, it was a great idea to privatize S.S. The government wants to control as much of your money as possible, thats why they refuse to change.