Reply #19: Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not saying this about you

[Nuclear Unicorn]

but for so long the people who drive on government roads and collect gov't SS checks have said the gov't is too incompetent to manage retirement funds.

It was the thrust of Bush's efforts to privatize SS. It's nothing but a tax dodge for those who can afford it.

The fact of the matter is private retirement accounts take money out of the economy and out of the SS pool. Poor people don't have them and as soon as they retire whatever social safety nets were in place during their working years are torn out from under them when they are most vulnerable.

Worse still, it allows one more shell for brokers and investors to play their shell games with. Every dollar given to the investors and bankers is one more dollar for them to gamble and if they lose (which they seem to do with annoying regularity) then its is the poor--again, those who can't afford to play Wall St Roulette--who get saddled with the bailout bill.