82-y-o dude wished he could've invested all his SS money in Stocks...

[BiggJawn]

...Says he'd be 4 times more wealthy now.

Story in the paper about a local retired guy who says he wishes HE could have invested in the stock market instead of paying into Social Security all these years. He figures he'd have about 4 times the money he has now.

Of course, he doesn't send back the $1,100 a month they send him.

82 years old....Guess he doesn't remember what it was like growing up in the 30's after the stock market ate everybody's nest egg that time...and he forgot the downturn a few years ago that made some of my friends come out of retirement because their investments went tits-up and their 401K's lost 1/2 their value...

My problem is, should I write the Author of this obvious "ownership" shill piece and ask if they got as much from Unkel Karl as Armstrong Williams did?

[tk2kewl]

1. f*ck him

no one stopped him from investing other potions of his income in the market.

[Goldeneye]

2. 4 times as wealthy

or maybe working at Burger King?

[SharonAnn]

3. He would've had to cash in 17 years ago. How was the market

then?

Especially given the very small percentage of Social Security tax that was withheld from his paycheck over the years before heavy inflation.

I don't think he would've come out that well.

Remember the stock "crash" in the late 60's? In the mid 70's? In the 80's?

I think the man has a serious memory problem.

[Ilsa]

11. If was cashing in 17 years ago now, it would have been

right about after the market crashed, Black October, 1987.

And that's the real problem, isn't it? What if it is time to start moving your investments into a safer fund because you are getting older, and the market devalues right about then? Alot of people lost 30-50% of their portfolio value at the end of 2000. That's taking away alot of capital to work with to get into a lower risk fund.

[tk2kewl]

23. like all neocon ideologues. no memories and delusions of grandeur.

like my idiot cousin who quotes Churchill to say "everyone is entitled to their opinion but not their own facts" but then denies that oil was less than $20 a barrel under Clinton and is $50 a barrel now thanks to bush's debt devaluing the $. They make up their own facts to match their idiotic ideologies.

[Fescue4u]

33. Who says you have to cash it IN?

when you retire?

Usually thats a pretty dumb move since savings account don't pay anything.

[Bluebear]

4. And I wish I had invented the microwave oven

Who stopped him from investing when he was young?

[buddysmellgood]

5. So why couldn't the old fool have invested anyway? Bunch of whiners.

Bitching that he couldn't risk the very money that sustains him. What's the problem? Does he not now have enough money? That says he was too stupid to invest on his own anyway. And if he does have more than enough, it's just greed.

[RoeBear]

7. How much extra money

do you have to invest with?

[buddysmellgood]

41. I guess you need to define "extra."

[sandnsea]

6. Let's see, 1987

He would have been, what, 65. Great time to retire. Would that have been before or after the stock market crashed that year?

I'd write an ltte and that's about all I'd say.

[davepc]

8. if you put 10k in the stock market in 1928

investing in nothing but the top ten stocks in the DOW, never adding to your intial investment, that 10k would be worth almost 20 million today.

if you ratchet that down to 1000, or 500 intial investment (remeber, with no adding to the portfolio) you'd still have well over a million dollars.

Bush's plan is a joke, but not because the markets dont work.

That 82 year old is 100% right.

[ultraist]

13. Not quite, he would invested about 100 bucks per month, NOT 10K at once

Small monthly investments do not yield the same profit as one large investment.

What would he have if he invested a hundred bucks a month? And that's high, because he likely paid about forty bucks a month the first two decades.

Generally, 10% annual profit is the average over 20 years in Stocks, barring any major crashes.

[Fovea]

16. I shudder to imagine the scale of the

bubble if the market in 29 had
the entire workforce's retirement
income to mess with.

The market went ponzi, much like it did again in '99.
Only in this case, it got a triple sucker punch from
the accounting/gaming scandals, the ponzi tech bubble, and the blowback.

I think it is fair to say a well regulated market is a sound
paradigm for the improvement of the human condition. But as we see repeatedly, the discipline to run a fair market, or a fair government
only seems to endure in the presence of watchfullness.

[sandnsea]

19. Where would he have gotten it?

And since he did, in fact, hit age 65 in 1987; how would that have played out? And if he had lost everything then, where would he get more money to invest at that age? Or when the bubble burst? Or after 9/11? I know alot of old people with money in the stock market, some had as much as a million in 1999. Even for them, it's still their social security and pensions that keep them stable.

[Warpy]

20. Yes and no.

Having $500 to invest in 1937, when social security began, was a dream of most people in this country. Don't forget, twenty dollars a week was considered a great wage and it would support one's wife and kids. Five hundred dollars would buy a small bungalow.

He'd likely have been able to spare only a dollar or so a month, and at that rate, he'd never have gotten as rich as you or he ASSume.

Hindsight that doesn't take the massive inflation of the past 68 years into account is blurry, to say the least.

[earthside]

21. DOW Components

Of course, the top ten Dow stocks in 1928 are not the same as they are now. So it is still a matter of picking and chosing ... the risk factor.

The market works, but if you read the book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" you will find that for the average investor, it has about the same odds as going to Los Vegas.

[xray s]

22. Huh?

How do you define the "top ten stocks of 1928"? By capitalization? Annual % price appreciation?

Who were the top ten companies in 1928? How many of those companies were out of business in 1930? 1940? 1950? 1960? 1970? 1980? 1990? 2000?

Do you really mean buying and holding those specific ten stocks from 1928, or do you imply reallocating the portfolio every year to the top ten stocks that year (if indeed the later, that would be a neat trick, only possible in hindsight).

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. The idiot thinks he was investing "his" money.

The money he paid in was paid out to the retirees of the day, the same as now. It was never his money to "invest", it was/is a social contract between todays workers and todays retirees. The old bastard is delusional and misinformed about how things work.

[noamnety]

10. My house hasn't burned down

I'd be richer if I'd invested my home owner's insurance money instead of paying my premiums for the last decade. But that's not how insurance works.

If he'd been disabled when he was young, that would have been his security net. It's insurance, not an investment plan.

[leesa]

27. Exactly. That's a good point.

[cosmicdot]

31. nice examples

what would he invest had he been disabled in his 20s? where would he be today? and, the way things go, his house might have burned down then

I'm sure he benefits from Medicare, too.

[punpirate]

12. I suppose if he'd been...

... one of those with enough money to invest in something like Xerox when it was not much more than a penny stock, yes, he'd have made more money. But, if he's getting $1,100 a month, he wasn't making that much money over the course of his lifetime, and probably didn't do much investing.

Moreover, what he might have made is beside the point. The program is designed to provide basic income insurance for everyone, including the disabled. How much of that $4,400 a month would he be contributing to the welfare of his co-workers? Not much, if any, I'd warrant.

[JohnnyRingo]

14. If ONLY he would have bought IBM or Microsoft stock!

It's easy to use hindsight, but I doubt that the plan Buxh is laying out would have increased his return by 4X.

In reality this geezer could as well have squandered his SS investments on Studebaker or the "Clapper".

[SharonAnn]

29. But what if he'd bought Polaroid, or Xerox?

[phylny]

32. Or Enron!

Not a week goes by that I don't think of the poor people who have worked so hard, and invested, and then lost everything due to corporate scandal .

[slor]

15. If only he had invented...

a youth serum, he would not look 82 right now. LOL, I know it does not make sense, but I really felt it needed to be said.

[Warpy]

17. People who have run the real numbers

have found out, much to their chagrin, that Social Security has paid them much more handsomely than investing in the stock market would have, even if they'd had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and picked 100% winner stocks.

Don't kid yourself. This letter is from one of Rove's elves. Expect to see this and a whole lot more Astroturf from "local elderly."

It's a propaganda war. The thing is that most people have better sense. There's a reason tampering with social security has been called the third rail of politics. No other program has ever worked so well for so little administrative cost in the history of the country.

No wonder they hate it.

[LiberalFighter]

30. Need to prove that these letter writers are who they are....

not necessarily their names but their age

[BiggJawn]

39. That's what I was thinking.

Given the recent "Paid Journalist" scandals, Mr. Military-man-meat-dot-com, etc.
I read this and immediately wondered "Where did they dig THIS guy up at, How much did Rove pay him, and how could the reporter be so gullible?"
Then I remembered which paper it was.

Anybody else seeing articles about old codgers who wish *THEY* could get in on Dumbya's "Ownership gold mine"?

[Psephos]

18. An 82 y/o man deserves basic respect for voicing his opinion

"Fuck him." "The old fool...." "The bastard..." "Bitching...stupid...greedy..."

What's up with that?

If you disagree with his point of view, cool. Pick his arguments to shreds. But giving him verbal kicks in the ribs like droogies in Clockwork Orange is not cool.

I would prefer to live in a society where our first reaction to people whose politics we dislike is not the language of street gangs. Especially old people.

Peace.

[slor]

24. I agree...

with the "Fuck Him" post, that is. If he wants to be a tool for the bush scam, 82 or 18, then he deserves to get what is coming to him, in our little sactuary here. It is not as if a DUer kicked his cane out from under him or something.

[Psephos]

36. That's the spirit

Because, after all, is there anything even as remotely important than having the right politics?

The argument about the guy not reading DU is off the point. Of course he's not reading DU. But we are, and calling old people every name in the book trains us to think that's cool, when it's not.

Sure, there's a chance the guy's a shill, that Rove wrote the letter, that the man forgot to take his thorazine, etc., etc. There's also a chance he's someone with an idea we don't like. Either way, attack the opinion, not the person. Karma.

Peace.

[Bluebear]

26. Well I would agree if he would see/hear the posts

I understand your sentiment but I doubt he will hear these comments. Also, I do think it's small of him to 'go public' trying to boost Bush's plans to change Social Security after enjoying the checks himself for 20 years.

[oasis]

35. In person he gets leeway. On DU he deserves a kick in his ancient ass

for being such a tool of the Bush gang. :kick: there ya go.

[mitchum]

25. Senile dementia...

or maybe he's just a dumbass

[CindyDale]

28. We all wish we could have invested in the stock market now that we find

out about the plot to rip us off. Duh.

Ask him if he wants to donate his $1,100 monthly check to the Baby Boomer Retirement Relief Fund. We've been paying his benefits for almost 20 years now, and fair is fair.

If he doesn't like that idea, ask him if he supports the idea of freeze drying the Boomers and selling them as cattle feed to help finance the grandkids' retirement accounts.

[Fescue4u]

34. Id rather invest it myself, than TRUST BUSH with it

I don't know.

Im thinking that Americans can surely manage their funds George Bush.

[Bozita]

37. Which paper? Link please, if possible.

I gotta read this one in its entirety.

[BiggJawn]

38. Lafayette, Indiana "Journal and Courier"

Not sure if the article is available on-line. It's graphic-intensive and makes my dial-up choke. Sunday 2-13-05 edition.

www.jconline.com

[ComerPerro]

40. And I am sure he would have made all the right choices, right?

Probably wouldn't have invested in a single stock that lost money.

Hell, I wish I had bought a shitload of Haliburton stock before the war.

[KG]

42. he's an idiot - nuff said.