Stock Market privatizing SS

[DCA_HORN]

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[JohnnyM]

Perhaps that's true...but does anyone have the actual numbers?

If it could never work simply because the government is full of elected thieves that is a far different reason than if the program itself is not self-sustainable. Perhaps the end-game is the same regardless of reason, but I'm still curious.

 

[Wesser]

Of course, if the funds that formerly went into the social security trust fund went into the market, would we even be seeing the losses on the major exchanges? Collectively, those funds would represent a huge infusion of capital into the marketplace. Would it be an illusion of expansion? Of course. Has that ever mattered? Not really.

Truth is that our downturn is based on the simple fact that our economy is based on the service industry and revolving debt. We don't make anything here anymore but more debt and chain restaurants. Our consumption economy depends on the waiter at Chili's using his credit card to buy a big screen TV and stop by the Applebee's for dinner. What happens when the waiter from Chili's amazingly can't afford the $150K mortgage that the idiots at Countrywide wrote him. He is foreclosed on. Chances are that during his futile attempts to avoid foreclosure on his lone asset he maxed out his credit cards, eventually causing a default on those accounts. Now without access to the credit that financed his life, he is forced to rely upon his meager income to try and make ends meet. He can no longer afford to eat out for every meal and buy big screen TVs. As such, our waiter friend is no longer is the engine driving our economy. No problem, both political parties believe that we should give the waiter another $800 so that he can spend a little more.

Problem is nobody seems to be acknowledge that our economy is dependent on consumption by guys just like this. We have done a masterful job at masking the deficencies of our economy through the dramatic increases in access to consumer debt in the past 15 years.

But the truth is that there is only so much wealth in the world. If the economies of the developing world, China, southeast Asia and Western Europe are all increasing, it is likely at our expense. The global economy has taken vast swaths of high paying manufacturing jobs. We can't expect that it will not catch up with us eventually.

 

[SomeMildLanguage]

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[Summerof79]

thank the Lord that one of Bush's dumbass policy ideas wasn't implemented! All it was really going to do was line the pockets of wall street. Though I think we ought to allow for savings to be non-taxable until it is withdrawn up to a cutoff point.

 

[classic cack]

Well said, Wesser. Nice sig photo as well.

 

[zork]

What is the Charlie Rangel way? It will be his way or the highway. He shot down the Bush plan.

 

[johnnyhorn]

The U.S. government is exactly several trillion dollars in debt. Why do some of you believe that it is a better administrator of citizens' retirement accounts than those citizens?

 

[EuroHorn]

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[BattleshipTexas]

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[johnnyhorn]

Eurohorn, I don't think the government has even begun bailing people out of their mortgages yet. The several trillion dollars in debt has been amassed primarily over the last twenty-eight years, before the mortgage meltdown was ever imagined.

Again, so why should we assume the government is better at making financial decisions when it has a proven track record of probably being much worse than that of your average American?

 

[EuroHorn]

I realize that the mortgage problem has probably not entered into the equation. I was merely using it to make a point. I am sure, that buried in the trillion dollars of debt are other examples of the govt coming to the aid of others who made bad decsions.

And I would classify government workers as your "average" american. So they are doing what I would expect an average american to do.

 

[Texas Wahoo]

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