SoS Dubya!

I had decided to shut my trap about Bush's SS plan bcos for one, I am not the advocate on economy or savings by any stretch of the imagination (my bank balance or rather, the lack of it could speak volumes) and for another, I find myself (not surprisingly) on the minority.

Anyway, not knowing about an issue has never deterred me from talking in the past. And when I heard Maher say something a tad favorably about it (another brownie point for Bill M is that as much as he is an out-and-out liberal, he's going to accept what Bush has done right --- his is not political parody for parody sake), I decided I was in as elite a company as I can garner, and so might as well air my not-so-qualified views about it in this land of civil liberties ;) Meaning, I can actually talk favorably about the president of the country and get away with it.

[Aside: Why does googling Bush return a ton more sites that are Bush-whacking than Bush-lauding, and in that case, why is he still the president for the fifth straight year? Is Google merely left-wing or is the media-and-blogger world subsisting on its fancy niches in cyberspace, blissfully unaware of the real world around it (far-off Washington and the local polling booth, inclusive)?]

Coming to my question on Social Security: why is a private account such a bad thing? Isn't it obvious that this country has grown in a way unimaginable by the forefathers who created social security and that some amends need to be brought into the system? Just because social security has been taken for granted all these years, you can’t just sit there and say you are going to keep getting it cos you were getting it all along... (you have been taking a lot of things for granted that seem to be no longer around: civil liberties and gas at a dollar odd per gallon, to mention just a few).

Moreover, I think this is the next logical step toward personal economic freedom; sure, if you bungle up your investing you could lose some money, but by the same token, if you invest wisely, you could end up with more money than the government would have for you.....While the current social security would leave you at or below the poverty line, investing in your own account might leave you a millionaire----that's what the experts say (and it makes sense too!). And the good thing is this would be in addition to what you have in the general trust fund; so there is not a chance that you retire with almost nothing (insert here: feigned financial advisor half-smile).

In other words, averting just part of your social security taxes to a savings account that you can control seems a much more logical way of preparing for retirement than sitting back and letting the government either hike up taxes or reduce benefits.

If the question is, "What would you rather have: a tax increase, a benefit cut or a private account?", the resounding answer seems to be: "Something for which I can’t be blamed." For a country that takes huge risks (skiing downhill at 30 mph and electing dubya to a second term comes easily enough) it seems surprisingly cautious with long-term monetary investment. And if you're one of the few people that don’t ski or bungee-jump and that voted for Kerry, how about investing in the relatively risk-free bonds (in other words, do whatever you want, just don’t ask me to explain this!)? In either case, it will earn you more than what SS promises today, according to the same experts I mentioned a while ago.

The feather-in-the-cap is that middle class and low income workers now get to have a stake in the economy--what can be better for a predominantly capitalist country like the US, than every citizen forced to feel happy about the economy doing well, and hence motivated to do well themselves? While the rich get richer, the poor can get richer too. True ownership society is just around the corner----and beaming!