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To: GVTucker who wrote (103358)	5/12/2000 8:45:00 AM
From: willcousa	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

An observation from doing estate work. Social Security appears to be a bonus for people from semi-skilled union worker or secretary on up. I have no experience with lower paid workers. I have yet to see anyone pass away who didn't have a bigger estate than when they retired. Those who bought stocks, regardless of their means, had a lot more. Even those who simply kept their excess cash in the bank had more dollars. These people were retired through the ruinous high inflation of the Carter years and the low inflation now. The Bush plan to invest 2% privately is optional so those who have no confidence in the future or in their ability to manage the money can opt out. Some people value the security of that more highly than others. So there is the safety net for those who want it. Remember that the average return to a social security recipient on the dollars he or she invests is abysmal. If the system were merely changed to put all of the money into bank CD's and bar invasion of the funds prior to retirement for any reason the public would be better off. Few politicians or government workers are under social security. They have other plans. Why do you think that is? One reform would be to force these folks to participate in social security. I would be the system would be improved in a hurry. I go to a lot of estate planning seminars and see people shopping around to find the consensus among the so-called experts before making a move. I believe that most of the public is quite capable of making good decisions about their finances.

To: GVTucker who wrote (103358)	5/12/2000 11:22:00 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

OT More social security Regarding Social Security, everyone who wants to see individuals be able to invest their Social Security funds into the stock must also then be willing to let anyone who loses money in this venture go completely destitute. If people are not allowed to go broke and stay broke in this scenario, then a very large imbalance between risk and reward will develop that will cause inefficient capital allocation. I think the recent plan I heard of allows 2% of your income to the stock market (or other individually controled investment) while all the rest of the social security taxes (both employee and employer contributions) go to the current system. Would you support this idea? Tim

To: GVTucker who wrote (103358)	5/12/2000 5:12:00 PM
From: Joe NYC	Respond to of 186894

GVTucker, The question about where to invest soc. sec. money is purely academic, since the soc. sec. system doesn't have any money. It has liabilities as far as eye can see, and the only asset is the ability to force the working people to pay taxes. The way to fix it is to start accumulating some assets. You can do it inside the soc. sec. system or outside. Amy just pointed out the difficulties in doing it yourself. I am currently going through setting up a 401K for a small business, and there is a lot of bureaucracy and overhead involved, but it will give our employees a chance to provide for themselves, and not be entirely dependent on soc. sec. system. But I am all for increasing the contribution limits for IRAs. Amy, it is actually a lot worse for the outsiders who are limited to IRA. In 401K, you can set aside 10,500 yourself, but the employer can match this. The overall limit is 30,000, I believe, including the employer match. With IRA, you are limited to 2,000 and even that goes away if your income exceeds some treshold. That's totally dumb. Why not let people save money when they have high income for the time when they will have little or no income? Answering the question would take us to an ideological argument, so let's just not go there. Joe