Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to What Ed said.

re: What Ed said.
Davin L. — (archived)

"The devil will, as you say, be in the details."

Indeed. I'm not sure there is cause to tempt the devil. Again, my main objection is that this is a MIGHTY big risk for little or no gain, given the actual state of SS.

"The ideal private-investment reform for me would be:"

The problem is, Tom, is that your system practically assured that 1-5% of retirees will have invested in dumb stuff and will be foisted back on the taxpayer to pay for. Plus, it assures an inflation of the Government to regulate risk behavior and monitor investing practices, diversity etc- even for just the 'low bar' you set for government involvement. 'Traditional' SS son't go away, because as you say, its voluntary.

So we have all the cost of managing the traditional SS, plus the 1-5% of people who are going to come begging, plus the extra beaurocracy(can't spell it, don't want to learn how, don't bother pointing it out). Thats going to add up to a LOT OF MONEY.

All for something that isn't really a problem.

And then if we go the 'Hyper Government' route, the US Gov't becomes the single largest stock-holder in the history of the world at worst, and at best merely imposes politically-vulnerable and possibly corrupt judgements about what we can and can't invest in. Which means also more beaurocracy, more laws, more gov't involvement in the economy and in individual lives and again:

It fixes a problem that doesn't exist outside political speaches and partisan fantasies.

"People can make jokes about the T-Bills that the fund is now invested in, but that's probably the only safe place to put the money. Even if private investments create greater returns, it would again be a recipe for certain corruption and de-facto nationalization of some private entities if the government bought enough of some things."

So your argument is we should privatize so that private citizens can do exactly what the government is doing (T-Bills) for the same return? That doesn't exactly leave me excited.

Davin L.

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