wiz, Not with the financial knowledge of the Federal govt. The problem is, Social Security is an insurance/annuity program, not an investment program. As such, you have to set part of the contribution aside for life insurance (survivor insurance is part of the deal), disability, burial insurance, Medicare coverage, a payout at a certain age, etc. The only way to cover such insurance and annuity goals is with the highest quality fixed income investments. Yes, you could have outperformed the Social Security investment with stocks if you had lived, didn't have a disability, etc. But that is the "Security" part of the program. Can you imagine the disaster if you were disabled in 1974 and all of your SS contributions were in something like The T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund, which lost 80% of its value, or any of the Twentieth Century (now American Century) stock funds that lost between 75-90% of their value. And these are not fly-by-night fund cos. Just cos. that make investments not suitable for insurance/annuity type investing.
Of course, there is 90/10 option speculating, which would work like a charm for an insurance/annuity program, but try getting that through Congress. <VBG> |
