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To: JakeStraw who wrote (59505)	5/15/2002 4:35:24 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 77397

Yeah, we know all of those arguments, but the system is a bust. Let's grandfather in everyone who chooses to be in it today and take away the choice for everyone in the future. Then float a big government bond to cover the costs. Leave me out of it. I'll pay for my whole family's retirement, including my parent's and my wife's. :) I'm just dreaming, but what the heck? Another idea is to get moving on privatization. I'm all for the government telling me I have to save x% of my money for retirement. But then give me the same choices of investment my 401K gives me. That way we can move to a model of everyone covering their own butts, instead of a socialisting system of transferring the wealth of today's workers to the workers of yesterday. Here's a thought experiment. What if we took a poll? If the government came to you today and said, "You can opt out of the social security system right now, but you forfeit all the contributions you've made thus far. In return, you won't have to pay in another nickel for the rest of your working days." How many of you would take that deal? I bet you'd have a stratification of answers by age as follows: 18-30 yrs ~ 95% 31-40 yrs ~ 50% 41-50 yrs ~ 25% 51-60 yrs ~ 5% >60 yrs ~ 0% From there, I think the government can do the math to see whether we can get rid of this big albatross called Social Security off from around our necks. I wonder if the forfeited funds would be enough to pay for those who opt in? Then those who didn't opt in, could save on their own. The alternative being a gov't mandate to save, but a privatization of their savings to mirror good 401K plans with lots of mutual fund choices.