[lookout123]

i don't know bush's reasoning (he hasn't checked in with me this week), but from what i can see, the current SS system needs to be overhauled. It was not intended to be a retirement plan, but a supplement. the problem is that they take a lot of money from you over your career and what they give back to you in retirement doesn't begin to approach the amount that would have been available if the exact same money had been invested in a conservative mix of equity and bond funds among other things.

that can clearly be seen by the numbers that i've put in earlier in the thread. Those funds are not exceptional, they are pretty run of the mill conservative money managers.

what i hear as the main objection is that people will make bad choices with their money and not have any SS to count on in retirement. I think i showed what one could expect to be able to draw out on a monthly basis even if the market collapsed and dropped by 50% - still a hell of a lot more than they are getting from the current system. from what i understand, the proposals are for their to be a limited number of investment choices, all fairly conservative - similar to what is currently found in most TSA's.

from that standpoint, the individual accounts would work. i don't know what the smoothest way to convert from the old system to the new system would be, but their must be some solution.

but instead of looking at how to make something work, we've got people like tw screaming in the wind how this too, is designed to screw the little people and only benefit people who know how to polish their shoes (as if that is a crime).