Would you agree to let young people Opt out of Social Security if they wanted and invest that money elsewhere?

[Willamette]

Then how is the US Government going to meet their social security obligation to older people without money from a base of younger workers?

[zyro]

I'm a young person and I think we should just bite the bullet for our elders. We should just pay into social security knowing we won't get anything so we should make sure to invest in our 401k's and IRA's. A lot of older folks sacrificed for us in WW2, Korea, & Vietnam. We should pay it forward. Then at some point we should establish a cut off line and just abolish it after the last group of qualified people has passed away.

[LV426]

It sounds good, but what happens in the following circumstances:

(1) An aggressive investor loses everything

(2) A conservative investor doesn't have enough to live on

(3) A run-of-the-mill investor finds out he's been defrauded

Hell, how about me? I've invested in average mutual funds for the last 20 years. Now they're in the toilet. Thank God I'm not retiring any time soon. What if I was? Tough luck?

In all of these circumstances, they are going to come crawling back to the government, looking for support. So, now, not only is the pool of money smaller, but we've got people who didn't put anything in, knocking on the door, crying for help because they got hosed taking the reins for themselves.

I'm not a fan of big government, but the average person spends no time reviewing their investments. They just dump some money in a mutual fund, praying it'll be worth more in the future.