Which do you trust most : The Government or the Free Marketplace ?

[kentuck]

More specifically, in regards to the proposed Social Security privatization plan of Bush? Do you trust the government more to protect the elderly in their later years or do you think the market, the stock market in particular, would be a better way to go?

How much faith do you have in the market place? After what has happened with Enron, savings and loans, and all the other big busts, do you still trust the marketplace?

And lastly, do you think by your opinion you fit more comfortably in the Democratic or Republican Party?

[Coyote_Bandit]

1. Caveat Emptor

I *trust* neither the government or the free market.

[salin]

3. but in absence of government oversight

and in todays "free market" (NOT free!) climate... I have to vote for the government per SS.

[Guarionex]

2. usually...I say the government...

that's because, administered well and following rules, the government is a sure bet....you can mathematically account for income coming in, and predict whether or not benefits will be there for the population of the future...the problems come when these "starve the beast" Republicans are in power...they whack out the entire mathetmatical formula and end up leaving total fiscal problems for Democratic administrations to clean up (like Clinton did).

It's almost a wonder to me that most Americans imagine the "Golden Years" of America to have been the years right after World War II, and not realize that those were the years were Roosevelet era reforms were strongest, and Keynesian capitalism at its heights.

You can almost date the start of our moral, economic, and political decline to the White Backlash of the 1980s, where Reaganite economics, coupled with intolerance ideology at home led to the America we see today...Clinton was a brief respite, but even Clinton had to play the "Centrist" game to appeal to the general intolerant American society.

[Q]

4. What if the same...

...people control both?

[kentuck]

5. Then you have no choice...

You WILL worship the free market!

[zeemike]

6. The so called free market owns the Government

And they need the SS monies to prop up the Market so that it does not crash.

[BlueEyedSon]

7. Exactly, they are one-and-the-same now. Sigh. nt

[TayTay]

8. What's the difference?

Today's federal government exists to promote the interests of big business. They are one and the same. It's Eisenhower's military-industrial complex run amuck.

[havocmom]

9. Need that falling down, holding sides, ROTFL smilie

inserted *here*

[Solly Mack]

10. Neither

The government has moved away from the people and the "market" has never been people friendly. When your bottom line is profit, people never matter.

[AG78]

11. C. Montgomery Burns, The New God

"More specifically, in regards to the proposed Social Security privatization plan of Bush? Do you trust the government more to protect the elderly in their later years or do you think the market, the stock market in particular, would be a better way to go?"

Obviously anything from this administration is complete crap. They don't have to privitize it. Make it a progressive tax, and it'll be fine. But then that's why they want to privitize it.

"How much faith do you have in the market place? After what has happened with Enron, savings and loans, and all the other big busts, do you still trust the marketplace?"

Well I don't consider the market to be God, and I'm also an atheist in general. I'm not into worrying what the Market wants, or what the Market says, since it isn't human. Although the way the TV talks, you would think the Market was human. It's all the fun of the good old days, without the volcano and the virgin to appease the gods.

Give everything you have to the Market. The Market knows all. Never question the Market. Come, let me tell you how the Market can save your soul. And the Market sayeth, "Thy shall come unto me, with thine possessions in hand, and giveth to my son, Wall Street. For he, is thine light into heaven."

"And lastly, do you think by your opinion you fit more comfortably in the Democratic or Republican Party?"

Neither.

[kentuck]

13. Good post, AG78 !

:)
"Give everything you have to the Market. The Market knows all. Never question the Market. Come, let me tell you how the Market can save your soul. And the Market sayeth, "Thy shall come unto me, with thine possessions in hand, and giveth to my son, Wall Street. For he, is thine light into heaven."

[kentuck]

12. So, should Social Security be abandoned ?

or has it already been abandoned?

[Leilani]

15. No, it shouldn't be abandoned

but you are seeing people's mistrust of gov't coming out.

We're seeing the gov't as unreliable as the "free market."

[leesa]

14. There IS no free marketplace. Your choice is giving your money

to the gov to save for you or handing it over to Wall Street for their enrichment.