At 06:25 PM 1/17/2005 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote: >> Well one important difference is that in the case of the former, the SSA, >> by investing hundreds of billions in equities would be a pretty >> influential mover of equity markets. In the case of the latter, >> individualized >> decision-making woudl presumably iron out those effects some. > >Perhaps someone can tell me why that is a major problem. Not because I >think you're wrong, I just don't know.
The biggest problem is what happens when the decision maker with hundreds of billions of dollars in assets picks an investment vehicle for those assets. Since increased demand boosts price, whomever is currently investing in the "chosen" assets will probably do pretty well for themselves. >> Other than that, though, there were a couple other important points in my >> post that were snipped. >> >> JDG - Reconciling Pay-As-You-Go with Longer Life Spans, Increasing Health >> Care Options and Medical Costs, and Decreasing Population Growth, >> Maru.... > >And if you had read the whole thread you would know that we have discussed >the solutions to at least some of those problems - raising the retirement >age gradually, tying benefit increases to cost of living rather than >wages, and taxing 100% of SS for retirees above a certain income level. All of these proposals provide practical solutions to the immediate problem. They do not, however, address the fundamental imbalance of the current system. IN essence, it solves the problem for the immediate generation, but still leaves a gaping theoretical problem for some still more-distant future generation. That is why personal investment accounts or the only true long-term solution to the social security problem. Instead of continuing to push obligations onto future generations, current generations take responsibility for their own retirements, over some adequate transition period. This also has the salutory effect of boosting national savings, which should provide at least a temporary boost to the nation's long term growth. >As far as health care costs, the health care "crisis" seems to ebb with >Dems in office and flood with Republicans in office. Easy solution there. Gratuitous partisan jab ignored. JDG - Interesting how the same people who are environmentalists also seem to love Social Security, Maru..... _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
