That is in effect what Barack Obama is telling you every time he criticizes the privatization of Social Security. He is saying that you are not smart enough to save for your own retirement, and that the government will do a better job of saving that money for you. Do you as an American really believe this? That the government can do a better job of managing your money than you can?
Mr. Obama has vowed to fight any attempt by Bush or McCain to privatize Social Security mostly because they are Bush and McCain. It certainly is not because he has put any thought into what he is saying. Obama will try to scare you into thinking privatization is too risky and that the problem is the rich do not pay their fair share. He will try this because he doesn’t think you are smart enough to learn the facts. The rich only pay taxes on their first 108,000 dollars of income. It is true. But it is also true that they only collect benefits on that 108,000 they put into the system. If you make them pay more, then you are only passing on the problem of social security to a future generation who will then have to figure out where to get money to pay these extra benefits. It is the same logic that was used to create this disaster we call social security in the first place. Their eventual solution would be to not pay rich people their share of the benefits they put into the system. Another socialist program. Another way to punish the successful.
Among Obama’s scare tactics are misleading comments about the stock market. Knowing that most people do not much about the market, Obama says that the stock market is ok for investors, but it is too risky to base social security (your retirement) on. I don’t know about you, but I have more faith in our capitalist economy than I do in our government’s money management skills. At least most company’s can balance a budget.
Here are some facts. The average historical return of the S&P 500 is 11%. In fact, in any 20 year period you would have made more money in the stock market than the government’s choice for social security, government bonds. Even if you would have invested money the day before the stock market crash of 1929, you still would have made money in the market. To balance this risk even more, they now have target funds. These funds automatically allocate your money between bonds, domestic, and international stocks and they reallocate your money as you get older to make them more and more conservative. It is true investing for dummies, which is great because you don’t have to worry about your money.
The real reason Democrats do not want to privatize social security is they need it to feed their spending habits. They only hope you are never able to receive all the money you put into the system. It is a lot like the risk insurance companies take. If you would like to learn more about social security and its history, you should read my other posts on the subject. Then you know the history of the system, how it is broken, and how time after time politicians have vowed they have fixed it only to be proven wrong by history. Despite what Obama says, the only true way to fix it is to take it from the government and give it back to the people. Allow the people to live off of ALL the money they have saved for retirement, and not just what the government thinks is fair. That will be truly fair.
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