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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (214969)	1/15/2005 3:32:54 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573718

1) your first bitch is the cost John, I'm not sure if you have finance training or not (not trying to be condescending; I just don't know what your background is). So I'll try to make this simple. If the net present value of the reduction in benefits under Bush's plan is more than $2 trillion, then it would be financially worth it to invest $2 trillion today to make this happen. That would mean that the net costs of the transition are $0 or maybe there is a net benefit to Social Security. 2) you second bitch is the perceived loss of a safety net There doesn't have to be a loss of the safety net. It all depends on how they implement the plan. What if they implement the plan as follows: a) personal accounts that can be invested, but only in target-date, horison funds b) money can't be touched until a gov't mandated retirement age, exactly as in the current system If they set it up with the above conditions, then the new system would be stronger than the old and everyone would hit retirement with a much larger safety net than what they'll get today. The reason is that the return will be so much higher. If Bush were to set up the new system like a 401(k) where you can pull money out of it, then I would object strenuously, and probably for the same reasons you would. I simply wouldn't trust that most Americans would leave the money untouched until retirement. So as long as Bush safeguards the money and treats these personal accounts as untouchable accounts, then the plan is a darn good one.

To: Road Walker who wrote (214969)	1/16/2005 6:39:38 AM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573718

JF, My first bitch is the cost. My second bitch is preserving the safety net (FWIW). Cost is one thing we can agree on, but the "safety net" won't be threatened as long as people can choose whether to stick to the status quo or invest a part of their taxes in whatever securities they choose. The only thing left to argue over is whether citizens ought to be protected from themselves and the evil Enrons and Worldcons who will no doubt try to swindle their retirement savings away. Tenchusatsu