Privatization: Now is the time.

[Javier Jimenez <jimenj@yahoo.com>]

Privatization is the best alternative to SS Reform
because 1) payroll taxes are too high yielding very low returns;
2) the government still owes the money it took from SS to cover
general spending; meaning that not only higher payroll taxes
will be needed to support future retirees, but higher income
taxes will be needed, as well, to pay back the debt owed to
SS; 3) Young workers will get negative returns if any money at all;
4) the poor work harder and longer throughout their lives and live
shorter retirement lives; meaning that the taxes paid will end up
supporting other retirees that live longer lives.  On the average,
those retirees are the high and middle class that performed less
hard labor; 5) since workers own their retirement money and have
a right to it, unlike SS, their heirs inherit unused assets, assets
being a keyword because under SS there are no assets, there is no
capital, only a promise made by a handful of politicians to be kept
by another handful of politicians a generation later;

The set of values I would agree are needed are as follow: 1) Current
retirees should be taken care of; 2) current workers must have a
choice of moving to a private system or staying in the current
system; 3) workers that choose to move to a private system should
receive recognition for the taxes they have paid; 4) new workers
must go to the new system, so that there is a date certain when
the old system is closed down; 5) a safety net, paid out of general
revenues, should be put in place to provide for workers that cannot
at least purchase an anuity at retirement that will pay for their
benefits in retirement; 6) the government role as a regulator should
be to provide oversight of the investment vehicles available for
people to invest in; 7) investment choices should include:  stock
mutual funds, bond mutual funds including corporate and government
bonds foreing and domestic, and bank CDs.  No individual stock
picking, or investment in stock options or other derivatives; 8)
worker's ownership of their capital.

Javier Jimenez