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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (42107)	6/27/1999 6:08:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<<Privatizing social security would be a major achievement. Why it hasn't been done before now amazes and perplexes me.>> Only about fifty percent of Americans have any stocks at all, and the vast majority of these holding are in mutual funds. The percentage of Americans who are sophisticated about investing in individual stocks is tiny, and we can see from the multitudes at SI who have publicly acknowledged losing money on a regular basis, it is a complicated business to be successful. If your idea is for the government to invest Social Security contributions in mutual funds en masse, then that REALLY intermeshes private enterprise and the government, and is a vast new experiment with our markets. If your idea is to have individuals do their own investing, then those who will truly need their money the most in old age, the relatively poor and unsophisticated and not so highly educated for the most part, then for many of them there will be no safety net, as the money may well have been lost. Also, when you retire you start needing money immediately. If the market is in the down part of its cycle, it is not a good time to take money out, and yet you may have no choice. Talk about a whole bunch of ways to lose your shirt!!!!!!!!!!!!