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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (8338)	5/19/2009 1:40:43 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Imagine if Bush had been successful and then everyone moved their social security dollars into the stock market. Everyone's social security retirement would be worth 40% less right now. Yes, if everyone moved 100% of their retirement money to the stock market and left it all there as prices fell .... OTOH, how about private accounts which lower the percentage potentially allocable to stocks (vs bonds) as people age and near retirement? An account 50% in stocks and 50% in fixed income would be down only 205 in your example. And would that 20% decline be a permanent loss? Furthermore private accounts would be something to be passed on to heirs. Talking about problems with a reformed system doesn't mean the current system isn't gonna come to a crisis point someday. I don't know how it will be resolved ultimately .... but it isn't going to continue as at present forever. Personally, I'm not counting on SS to be very important for me though its likely I'll collect something from it someday, I suppose. PS I have a private account and I'm down from the peak 17% at present and have approximately 40% in an short/intermediate term bond fund at present.