From: "Mark" 

"we can easily afford to let 'er ride a decade to see how it goes."

Depends on who the "we" is in your equation - the "we"
I'm thinking of are ordinary citizens that finally have an opportunity to
have a decent retirement program outside the reach of the congress that
will actually (even if they buy only bonds, not stocks) give them a decent
return and a decent amount of money in retirement. I suspect the
"we" you're talking about are the government maintaining the
status quo - no thanks. And as I said before, I'm amazed that we're even
this close to fixing it, too bad for so much knee-jerk "let's leave it
alone" thoughts, but I think that those thoughts are easily proven to
be bereft of logic and Bush will get it through, although it may take
another trouncing in 2006 to guarantee the votes for it.

This reform is actually, now that I think of it, probably the major reason
I wanted Bush to win over Kerry, who would have never entertained such a
concept of letting go of control over our pocketbooks 

"Steve Ewing"  wrote in message
news:opsi2xo30dsagvys{at}news.barkto.com...
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:11:46 -0500, Mark  wrote:
>
>> once it gets rolling though, they won't want
>> to be left out of having their own supplemental account
>
> Social Security is *insurance*-- it is there as a guaranteed buffer, no
> risk, no worries.  You want to dabble in the market, by all means take
> $1000 and invest to your heart's content; and if you lose it, or you don't
> make enough to retire on from it, there's SS to help out.  That's the
> idea.
>
> Over at www.washingtonmonthly.com they are going over and over the
> economics of it; in a nutshell if the projections necessary to have SS run
> out of money in 2042 are valid, then those same projections show that
> private accounts won't help.  Conversely, if the projections that show
> private accounts are a good idea (ignoring the transition costs) hold
> true, then SS will not need any saving because the economy is doing so
> well that the fund doesn't run out.  It's a few decimal points either way
> in a projection that looks 40 years ahead-- SS is not really in trouble
> and we can easily afford to let 'er ride a decade to see how it goes.
>
> --
> Steve 
> http://www.qmss.com/sewing

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5