08-11-2015, 11:20 AM
CONS OF PRIVATIZED SOCIAL SECURITY
NO, Social Security should remain under govt. control (keeping the system as it is, with taxes going into a trust fund, not the stock market).
1. Private accounts would reduce special insurance protections, such as disability and survivor's insurance, that are also provided by Social Security. Cuts will have to be made to these programs in order to fund private retirement accounts.
2. Privatizing Social Security, which essentially is putting peoples' retirement money at the whim of the stock market, will weaken the federal retirement system through potentially risky investments.
3. Putting their Social Security funds into private investing accounts exposes US workers to be victims of unscrupulous [unethical] stock brokers and of their own investment choices.
4. Many people either do not know, or do not want to know, how to make the sound decisions about their own long-term investments that private accounts require.
5. Social Security is a program that provides benefits through one, centralized process dictated by the US government. Moving benefits into individual private accounts creates a decentralized system that will have to take into account the millions of diverse opinions, preferences, and expectations of individual investors, making the program too unwieldy [uncontrollable].
6. Privatization of federal retirement benefits has proved disappointing in other countries. Private retirement accounts in the UK that started in 1988 have had management fees and marketing costs eat up an average of 43% of the return on their investments.
7. Putting money from Social Security into private accounts means moving retirement savings from a simple, easy to comprehend system into a complex structure of investment portfolios and stock market shares that is more difficult to understand.
8. Invested private Social Security accounts will not benefit the US economy but will put billions of dollars in management fees into the pockets of Wall Street financial services corporations.
9. Instead of upsetting the system through a new plan like privatization, future budget shortfalls can be fixed within the system. The current system will work by reducing benefits, increasing taxes, and/or raising the retirement age.
NO, Social Security should remain under govt. control (keeping the system as it is, with taxes going into a trust fund, not the stock market).
1. Private accounts would reduce special insurance protections, such as disability and survivor's insurance, that are also provided by Social Security. Cuts will have to be made to these programs in order to fund private retirement accounts.
2. Privatizing Social Security, which essentially is putting peoples' retirement money at the whim of the stock market, will weaken the federal retirement system through potentially risky investments.
3. Putting their Social Security funds into private investing accounts exposes US workers to be victims of unscrupulous [unethical] stock brokers and of their own investment choices.
4. Many people either do not know, or do not want to know, how to make the sound decisions about their own long-term investments that private accounts require.
5. Social Security is a program that provides benefits through one, centralized process dictated by the US government. Moving benefits into individual private accounts creates a decentralized system that will have to take into account the millions of diverse opinions, preferences, and expectations of individual investors, making the program too unwieldy [uncontrollable].
6. Privatization of federal retirement benefits has proved disappointing in other countries. Private retirement accounts in the UK that started in 1988 have had management fees and marketing costs eat up an average of 43% of the return on their investments.
7. Putting money from Social Security into private accounts means moving retirement savings from a simple, easy to comprehend system into a complex structure of investment portfolios and stock market shares that is more difficult to understand.
8. Invested private Social Security accounts will not benefit the US economy but will put billions of dollars in management fees into the pockets of Wall Street financial services corporations.
9. Instead of upsetting the system through a new plan like privatization, future budget shortfalls can be fixed within the system. The current system will work by reducing benefits, increasing taxes, and/or raising the retirement age.