RE: Opening statement--investment in stocks, bonds etc

[Javier Jimenez <jimenj@yahoo.com>]

Most of us would prefer doing better in retirement than SS can
provide. We should do so for ourselves, no new programs, thanks!

>>>>>>> Jim Keller wrote:
That to me is privatization, and a good thing,too, in freeing many
of us from thinking we're getting something from the government
when we don't need it and could do much better by self reliance.
<<<<<<<<

    "Mr. Chairman, let me conclude with a warning about the damaging
    moral effects of unfunded social security and other entitlement
    programs issued at the dawn of the New Deal: The lessons of history,
    confirmed by evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that
    continued dependence on relief induces a spiritual and moral
    disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To
    dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle
    destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of
    sound policy. It is a violation of the traditions of America."

That warning was issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in
his 1935 State of the Union address.

    "I believe that the road is clear in the United States to replace
    a Bismarckian program with a system that is so inherently consistent
    with American values."

Excerpt of Testimony of Jose Pinera, President of the International
Center for Pension Reform and Co-Chairman of the Cato Project on
Social Security Privatization before the U.S. House Committee on
Ways and Means on February 11, 1999