One Bush failure we should be glad of

Hmmm, Rod, I'm not so sure that we should be grateful that Bush's plan failed to win support in 2005. Sure, some Italians are upset ... but was it not their choice to switch to private funds? The Italian government did NOT compel these folks to switch.

Yes, the market crashed in 2008 and older investors planning to retire soon (and cash out) have every reason to be anxious. But younger investors with longer time horizons will do very well in the long run (assuming the long-term viability of the US economy).

The concept Bush floated in 2005 deserved a full hearing. Of course he yanked it when support for it sank. No actual bill was ever considered (or final plan voted on). Certainly younger voters could appreciate that -- in the long run -- market returns are way higher than those generated by the Federal bureaucrats who run the Social Security Administration. The scare tactics employed in 2005 by the AARP and the Democrats against the Bush plan were politically irresponsible and short-sighted.

As for Bailout II being considered by the President-elect, the fearless Michell Malkin is quite right in labeling it the "Generational Theft Act of 2009." Rod, our generation will probably make out OK, but the huge deficits piled up by Bush and the even bigger ones in the coming years by Obama will burden your children and their children and be an enormous drag on the mid-century American economy.

No conservative would EVER even dream of "being glad" that privatizing what should be private failed. What an absurd bit of nonsense.

If all you did with your retirement funds was to buy long term CD's at the bank, you'd be SO much better off, than the 'returns' from SS... If people wanted to engage in some risk in the market, then "saving" them from that risk is a fool's virtue.

You see, the problem here is not the OUTCOME of the markets. The problem here is the structurally guaranteed failure of Social Security. It does NOT provide a retirement. You do not own it. You could pay into it your whole life and get absolutely NOTHING back in return.

You are looking at this through the lense of a possible "outcome" for some people. What's important is not this single moment's outcome, but the whole structural stupidity of retirement via redistribution.

You see, every productive person SAVING MONEY would put that money into our financial system, as savings. Be it bank reserves or investment capital for business, or backing mortgages. This kind of savings encourages sensible lending. Not the "package and sell" baloney that poisoned our markets.

But enough about that. Conservatives believe in OWNERSHIP. You're touting the virtues of the nanny state ( and they're false, they don't even exist).

As I've stated before, I can find almost nothing in the last month from you that has in any way been conservative. Not even support of individual freedom. Instead, you've attacked it as the cause of people's bad behavior - as if nanny-state politicis makes people virtuous. Frankly, I can find no philosophical difference between you and the hard left Democrats.

There are SO many astoundingly good reasons to abolish SS and have people own their retirement individually, and not a single valid reason not to. The supposed "safety" of the nanny state is just a lie. SS is gauranteed to fail, and the structural debts it created to shift the payment burdens off to the future is immoral, just for starters.

To those posters who deny Rod's conservative nature - what are you people thinking? So what if he's not spouting off "reagan is God's good messenger" statements? To be conserrrvative means that one engages in thoughts, actions, etc. that are designed to preserve something (here, culture and society). Rod is conservative in that he is very much trying to help conserve society, regardless of the irrational, "every rat for himself" libertatian positions which have come, for whatever reason, to be considered "conservative". Rod is the conservative here, whether or not you libertarians see it that way.

As for reasons we should keep SS - I can think of several, all moral, all ethical, none individual.

Hmmm, my post was lost. Okay, I'll try again. I'm with Baldy et al. For so many years, people would have done MUCH better keeping the 15.4% SS tax they/their employers have been paying. Even pols know that the return on SS is pathetic. I just heard Sen. Dodd say something to that effect month or so ago.
It seems obvious that if the stock market tanks completely, that govt. will be in a sorry condition, as well. it already provides a pathetic monthly check for SS recipients, and was originally just a 'supplement', not supposed to be one's entire living income. May I remind everyone that SS does not keep an account with your name for your money. The money has been raided by money-grubbing politicians to spend on sculpture parks in Seattle and other lame stuff (the park is lame, trust me). They are surely glad that people forget that inconvenient truth.
Congresses spend money. I did not like the republican congress' spending ways. I have not liked to big-spending ways of the current democrat congress. And these democrats give no hint of changing any time soon your ss check will look like a joke at best, at some point. If it even exists.

The prior post starting " understand the comments about" is mine, I forgot to put my name in.

Bobb, I would have been one of those who would have gladly stepped out of SS. People forget how huge 15.4% of ones income is. That would be a huge sum of money. Most don't invest that kind of percent of their income in their Roths, etc. Yet through the years they make more money off their own funds. Lower income people have already been forced to contribute 7.5% of their income to SS with the employer matching. If you're already forcing them, at least let them choose where to put the money. The feds aready haven't cared whether they could afford THAT. But please, let's have some freedom, here! My dad earned a good living as a self-employed person. When he died five years ago, we were shocked at how pathetic his monthly SS check was, considering how much he'd sent in over the years. SS is a bad deal, people.

BobB are you aware that many local governments were allowed to opt out of the social security system? Galveston (can't remember whether it is the city or county) established a fairly conservative retirement fund that has done much better for the retirees than social security ever could.

I'm like Michele i would gladly let social security have my employer's 7.5% contribution if I am allowed to put the other 7.5% in financial instruments of my own choosing (most likely a mix of indexed mutual funds, bonds and money markets)