yeah, the privatization would help out a lot if people got into tax free municiples. think of that. taxes would be able to be lowered and the gov't actually could make more money in the end. its a cycle. you give them your money, they use it, you get it back with tax free interest (SS, btw, is taxed). im all for this idea. but there will be the stupid day trader who abuses his account and loses everything.

Re: Privatized social security

K....there is a lot of yelling and screaming going so.....

[size=6][b]LET ME EXPLAIN THIS IN SIMPLE TERMS SO EVEN THE MOST IDIOTIC PUNDIT WILL UNDERSTAND!!![/b][/size]

Privatizing social security is the right thing to do ideologically because it's your money and the government can't be trusted with it. At least 50% should be allowed to be used however you want because you pay 50% of your benefits. The reason we may not be able to privatize social security is because the government is a bunch of pathetic beady-eyed scoundrels. When social security started it was meant to be set aside in funds where the money would remain untouched or only partially used. Then some d-bags in Congress decided that we should treat social security like bonds. They collect cash every year from taxes then use it for that year's budget while making interest payments/benefits to people who are of SS collection age. Every year it gets fucked up worse. They increase the collection age because the interest expense is too high and the can't cover the payments. In truth, the privatization plan isn't much different than Gore's lockbox plan other than the party responsible for retaining custody of tax revenues.

THE DILEMNA: b/c Congress gave themselves permission to deplete SS cash accounts we now are faced with a huge dilemna. If SS revenues are put into private accounts and not into the general fiscal account, the government will have to borrow trillions of dollars up front to replace the money they shouldn't have been spending but did anyway. Now here is where things get interesting. The only way the government can raise revenue is by floating bonds, raising taxes, or hoping that GDP skyrockets and gives the government a huge surplus. GDP is unreliable and raising taxes is out too. The only way it can be done is to issue bonds. That's why democrats scream things like "privatization of social security will make us accountable to the Chinese!!!!" Becuase our currency is trading low against many other currencies many countries are eager to buy our securities. When a country like China/Japan/Russia/etc. buy our securities they have to change their money into ours. When that happens the demand for US dollars rises causing our currency to be more valuable and therefore other foreign products look relatively cheaper. The Bush administration is trying to counter this by making us securities/bonds more appealing to U.S. buyers by making them legal for U.S. private accounts and by increasing their return........note the recent hike in interest rates. With some luck and some temporary legislation, the government will actually be able to borrow back the money they allowed to go to private accounts. That way our currency value won't rise and we won't owe foreign investors trillions of dollars. This is what the entire fight is centered around. The real fight is whether or not the United States can survive privatization given its diabolical spending habits over the last half century.

[size=6][b]IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GREEDY YUPPIE SCUM AND LIBERAL COMMUNIST TRAITORS![/b][/size]

That is just inflammatory language the government uses to invoke emotion so they don't actually have to explain what's going on.