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

To: Grainne who wrote (68692)	12/26/1999 2:15:00 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

There are wonderful people teaching today. I'll bet even in San Francisco. But they're stuck in a system which is not responsive to their needs. Some of the best teachers quit, not because of money, but because of frustration with the system. Regarding privatizing social security... Often times when a person enters their first job which offers a 401K plan they have very little knowledge of investing. But now, since they are given the responsibility to invest, they seek out knowledgeable people and try and learn what they need to learn to be successful. This access and responsibility, creates a re-inforcing feedback loop which encourages people to attain investment knowledge. Creating this need, by privatizing the system, would also effect the educational system. Since everyone would be responsible for their own retirement nest egg, undoubtedly the schools would respond and offer investment courses. We live in a capitalistic society, yet young people graduate with masters degrees every year not knowing the difference between an IRA, 401K or Mutual Fund. Something is already missing from our schools. Privatization would help alleviate this knowledge gap. You underestimate the abilities of Americans to learn and grow. Michael

To: Grainne who wrote (68692)	12/26/1999 1:04:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I agree completely with you on this. I will add that if anyone has any interest, they can go back to last year on the Amazon thread and see how many highly intelligent people were wiped out - literally - shorting Amazon. I can think of three people that came out and said it, another guy lost $1mm. I'm watching the same thing unfold again with all the shorters showed up for Commerce One. (not trying to knock shorters here - longs do the same thing buying at the absolute top highly leveraged, etc.) We also had a deep depression last year in software and some really smart people were killed. If we enact a system where people can do their own retirement investing, I would say the most important regulation would be to force some sort of diversification and only allow some percentage for the really spec stuff. No options, but unlike IRAs today shorting should somehow be allowed lest we discriminate against the next generation. I'm all for personal choice but I don't want to pay for someones bad market decisions - thats redistribution of wealth and I'm against that about as much as I'm against government regulation of investments. If we keep the current system then I'm in favor of means testing because it is essentially a welfare system and NOT a self-funded retirement plan as the AARP likes to imply.