Will You Transfer Your FICA Taxes Into Private Accounts? Given A Choice?

[Yavin4]

I won't. If I wanted to gamble with my retirement, I'll do it myself. For me, SS is additional income, designed to complement my retirement. I don't want it f*cked with. I will handle my own investing for my retirement. Thank you very much.

For those that choose the private accounts, understand that your FICA taxes will end up the g-strings of strippers at Scores.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. No way

My great grandmother lost her money in the Crash of '29, and advised me never to invest in the stock market. She was in her 90s at the time, and I was a grade schooler, but I've always remembered-and followed-her advice on this matter.

[Ready2Snap]

26. Here's what will Happen

Go to "Editorials and Other Articles" and read:
Bush's Chile Model: Take Their Pensions and Run!

[MasonJar]

2. That would be pretty silly since I am 50% down still on the stocks

I already have.

[Ardee]

3. Nice word picture that last

For some that money would simply join some of their other funds.

The point, if I can get the mental image of that money's residence out of my head, is that concurrent with the creation of those private accounts will surely come other changes to SS, such as raised retirement age, lowering of payments to retirees,etc.

I await the stance of the Democratic leadership that SS private accounts will not stand unchallenged, and unfilibustered. So far all Ive seen is Pelosi saying that it is "on the table".......

[ogradda]

4. Hell no.

What if i pick a company that bellies up? I don't want to go back to work in my 70's thankyouverymuch.

[m0nkeyneck]

5. SS is chump change..

i'd rather take it to vegas and blow it

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. Funny..SS informed me my checks would be 1700 upon retirement

go figure :shrug:

[blondeatlast]

21. Take yours, not mine.

I earned it.

Hope you can type fast...

[m0nkeyneck]

24. u following me ;-)

[oneighty]

29. We will see when

you get old if it is chump change or not.

[m0nkeyneck]

33. at this rate i'm thinking it prolly won't be there...

when/if i need it so... why not let us enjoy it now

[oneighty]

34. Right wing Cato types

Have been selling that "it wont be there for you" for a long time. Until finally people are starting to believe it. If you young people keep buying into the message-sure enough it will not be there for you and neither will anything else.

You and yours will be the losers.

180

[tx_dem41]

6. It would depend on the particulars of the plan....

In general though, I am deadset against any change.

[gmoney]

7. Why not just bet it on a horse?

Privatizing Social Security will be the biggest scam in history...

Wall Street currently has all this stock they know is probably overvalued and will be worthless when the economy collapses.

Suddenly, millions of new investors are introduced into the market with billions (trillions?) of dollars and they have to buy SOMETHING. Since the market has more or less a fixed amount of shares, the prices of shares in everything will go UP as the SS "investors" are forced to buy high and bid higher to get shares.

Once all the treasury money has been injected into the market, the big boys sell at wildly (and artificially) inflated prices and take huge profits, which by that time will be tax exempt.

The selloff by the major players will drive prices down, screwing over the small and medium investors, all the SS, as their share prices plummet. (The government/taxpayers will be on the hook to bail out the shareholders, as Bush has promised that you won't LOSE benefits with this scheme.) If there's anything left standing, the big investors will quietly buy low and possibly repeat the process.

I've also heard that if you pick a big winner in your "private account" all it does is offset money that you would have received anyway. I don't think you can actually get ahead in this system. But that's been obvious for years.

Scam scam scam scam scam...

[SharonAnn]

35. The cronies just want to get the "fees" from handling all this money.

The costs will be so high, and the investments will be limited to "cronies" and their funds, that workers are guaranteed to receive less.

And, what that's just the "Old Age" part of OASDI. What about the Survivor's and Disability Insurance? is that eliminated or reduced?

They just want to "piratize" Social Security. They just want to steal your money.

[mmonk]

8. I already have private accounts

[Inland]

9. What you are exhibiting is rational conduct--you have a diversified

portfolio and plan to keep it that way.

If you were investing for retirement and listened to the big shots, you would have some low risk investments.

Today, the low risk investment social security, or rather, social security income takes the place of the low risk investment.

If SS disappeared you wouldn't have as risky a portfolio as you have now. You would sell some of your stocks and probably buy government bonds for the low risk investment. In sum: you already have all the stocks you dare own, thank you very much.

That is why the presumption that people are going to leap to move into a private acccount containing stocks is simply wrong.

[imenja]

10. I would

I have a guaranteed portion of my retirement fund. I would put it there. That's not to say I agree with a Bush style privatization. One) I'm not sure it's a good idea to privatize the whole thing because what would happen to those who lose their money. Two) I sure don't trust this crowd to oversee any change in the system. It would simply be another opportunity to turn over our tax dollars to their corporate cronies. I've had enough of that.

[lateo]

11. It depends...

If I can transfer them into a 401K and then withdraw them...I'm all for it.

[readmylips]

12. The ignorance of the uneducated American people....

To invest wisely, you must be extremely educated. That leaves 99 percent of the American people out. The stock market is as complicated and worse than the IRS.

My hub (three masters, one in math), after retirement decided to take a large chunk of our retirement money to do his own investment. He spends at least fifteen hours a day playing around on his computer researching stock investments. If we go on vacation, he must take his lap top to keep up. He attends a Rich Dad, Poor Dad class every Saturday morning at $25.00 plus all the extra material. We've lost the money he thought he could invest on his own. It is all gambling. I want my SS to be there for me and to hell with rich bastard george bush.

[superconnected]

30. kiosaki has written some interesting books

but after about two, your supposed to realize he's into multi-level marketing and run away as fast as you can.

Perhaps you should have your husband research him on the net. It's not good and many people are embarassed to say his name.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the book rich dad poor dad - found it in a book store and luckily didn't have to meet his followers personally. Perhaps you should pull your husband out before he joins amway because that place is crawling with those people.

[Sara Beverley]

13. So that the Ken Lays of the world can get richer? I don't think so!

There is absolutely no protection for the people who get swindled into this.

[eallen]

14. If I were young, absolutely. If I were near retirement, then not....

I fall somewhere in between, so (a) I'm in the group likely to be hit hard by Bush's SS reforms, and (b) what I choose will depend on the precise terms of the choice. If putting some fraction of my FICA into private account has no effect on how much future SS income the remainder generates, then I'll put it into a private account.

[tx_dem41]

16. Eegads...such rational thinking!

Be careful in here. (BTW...see my post above...I'm one of those "somewhere-in-betweeners" too).

[hollowdweller]

15. If this whole thing comes about it will end up like the S & L debacle. The

gov't will have to bail everybody out. Also I don't know about where you all live, but WV has one of the lowest mean average incomes in the US. A hell of a lot of people here the only thing they are gonna have is ss. I have a buddy that has been a Mc Donalds manager for 20 years. He has no health ins, no pension. SS is gonna be IT for him

[Yuugal]

18. I can't wait!

I'm gonna make a killing! I found a pile of back-issues of financial magazines from a few years back and it has some great tips for regular people investing in the new economy. Since most financial advice is of the tried-and-true variety, how can I possibly miss? As soon as this change to SS goes through, I'm going to be buying big into the good stuff. Here are some of the picks I've been reading about:

Worldcom: 50 bux a share and this baby is going straight up! Those old-fangled baby bells just can't keep up with this hot player in the telcom market which has much less overhead! Rated: a doubly strong buy!

Lucent: Another beauty reasonably priced at 50 bux a share and they're in tech right? That always means buy! You'd still be talking to your friends using a tin can and string setup if it wasn't for the brilliant people at this company! Hop on this train before the cars are all full! Rated: Super Steaming Ultra Buy!

JDS Uniphase: You only need to know one word about this company: optically-enhanced-digitally-routed-ungenetically-engineered-packets. Do we know what any of these words mean, yes we do. Money packed so tightly into your duffel bags you'll need platinum zippers when you check your luggage at the airport to your private island. 100 bux a share now and the sky is the limit on this baby! Rated: Buy with your kids college fund if you have to!

Transmeta: We've decided to throw you lowly traders at home a bone this month and tip you off to a hot new offering from the semiconductor group. These new chips run cooler and slower than their over-priced competitors from INTC and AMD. The boys in the industry say their product with never be just a cheap mass-produced commodity and you'd have to be crazy not to agree with that! Rated: Steal grandmas tv and sell it, tell the kids they don't need a college fund because they are gonna be rich rich rich rich! TMTA gets our first and only Infinity Buy!

So jump right in and invest all you can!

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=LU&t=5y&l=off&z=m&q=l&c=jdsu,tmta,wcom

[idiosyncratic]

32. How could you have forgotten that great investment, Enron? n/t

[sonicx]

19. no, it's called social *security*

not social *gamble*

[ElsewheresDaughter]

20. no

[maumcc1]

22. If this gets passed, which I hope it doesn't ...

The Wall Street brokers will have a money orgasm. People need to be aware of all kinds of fees for holding stocks and mutual funds.

Chimpy seems to think he can do anything these days. I just hope the moderate Republicans don't go along with him. But I've pretty much lost faith in our Congressional leaders to do the right thing anymore. They're all sell outs.

[UdoKier]

23. Since I oppose the so-called "reform"...

I hope it never gets to that point.

[superconnected]

25. fact

97 percent of all people who invest in the stock market lose their money.

most people do not know enough about stocks to be trading. I've met adult men who talk big about the stock they own but have never head of shorting a stock before, and don't understand that every long bet they make has someone betting it short on the other side of the bet, that was matched up with them via the stock market.

Of the people who do know how the market works, are well read, have a trading method - system or fundamental, they still lose money in most cases.

If you want to try your hand at trading go to the free site wealth-lab.com which will give you an imaginary 100k to bet against the real markets daily numbers.

The stock market like poker, black jack and many other games is almost never won on gut feeling but on percentages and odds. People will take too high of risk - naturally (professional traders rarely take more than 2% risk and the average person often takes 50% risks), their betting size will be way off for the percent risk they take, they will have gut reactions and not consistency to make it a system and a slew of other emotional, financial problems.

It's the worst idea they've ever come up with BECAUSE of how the market works. It's setup for you not to win unless you have a really good system that you stick with, and make sure your system evolves over time as the market changes buying/selling habits.

I suggest reading Jack Schwagers Market Wizards to get an idea of how rare winners are and how system trader they are and the fact that they often lose money. Remember Richard Dennis lost 200 million - half his fortune and he's one of the greatest traders in the world.

I also recomment Van Tharps - Trade your way to financial freedom for system trading and then there are a whole slew of other technical and fundamental trading books out there that are classics AFTER knowing what a real trading system is. Then people should see clearly why this is such a bad idea. The stock market is NOT 50/50 odds.

the 3 percent of people that do make money are the pros with adequate leverage. the non-pros can get lucky but not stay consistently lucky and will blow out. Hey, try that free trading site I listed.

[n2mark]

28. I had a pension plan at work

if I didn't have the pension plan taken out of my paycheck and ss taken out, there is no way I would have anything now. I say, leave everything as is and the government quit dipping out of SS. shrub dipped out of SS, he now wants to cover his tail.

[alcuno]

27. I'm not eligible to collect anything from SS even though I've contributed

for over 40 quarters. My state retirement system has a deal with the feds that makes me ineligible.

[bobbieinok]

31. the ONLY winners will be the stockbrokers

my son, then a junior in hi school, saw this clearly when the right first started talking up 'redoing social security'

they started this when the stock market was really booming....then there was bloody Monday....and people started asking themselves 'what if I do this and the market goes down? where's my retirement money?'

and some people wondered 'what do we do with all the old people who've lost their money in the market? do we let them starve or try to save them....at what cost to the federal government?'

some things are just too clear/obvious for 'compassionate conservatives', I guess