Invest In Private Markets

[Michael Jones <powderfinger99@yahoo.com>]

I would state the topic of this forum more generally as 
"Investing in Private Markets" instead of "Investing in Stocks".
One does not actually need to invest in stocks for retirement
or other needs. There are other investments such as bonds which
are available.

The most important issue is that of private ownership. Under the
current system, no citizen has ownership of his/her own 
contributions. Even if the government simply invested all of
the retirement money in treasury bonds deposited into individual
accounts, this would be a dramatic improvement. (In practice
this would not work. The system would become insolvent faster than
it is now since the future tax liability would be larger).

There are few good reasons why the excess retirement monies 
are "invested" in government bonds. Government bonds are not 
investments since the government does not create wealth. The 
government can only redistribute wealth. Government treasury 
bonds can only be repaid back through future "wealth" creation 
through taxation.

The government does need to borrow money to sustain its cash
flow. For this purpose, issuing bonds are useful to even out
the flow of revenue and spending streams that the government
maintains. How did the need to maintain cash flow ever turn
into borrowing trillions from SS in the name of "investment"?
How did we let this happen?

It is possible to keep the current system as it is today. If
we really want to continue to "invest" in government bonds 
as we have in the past, we will just need to dramatically 
increase taxation in the future to pay the interest on the bonds. 

In my mind this is the only acceptable solution that the 
status-quo backers have to make. Once you have decided that
government bonds are the right investments, taxes should be
increased to a level which provides everyone a reasonable
"return" in benefit. This is what an investment in government
bonds means! Future taxation!

I believe it is time to take a vote. Where do you want your
retirement monies invested? If in government bonds, are you
will to pay much higher taxes later? If in the private markets,
are you willing to take on the associated risks for the potential
benefits?

Michael