I wanted to add one thing.

There used to be a notion out there that stocks outperform bonds over
the long run. Just how long the "long run" should be, is unclear: as
of a few weeks ago, stocks UNDERperformed bonds for the last 5, 10,
15, 20 and 25 years. See

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124725925791924871.html

The article is also very interesting, as it questions whether
Prof. Jeremy Siegel's data that he relied on in making claims about
"Stocks for the long run", is actually biased to bolster his claims.

Anyhow, the long run determinator of any asset's return, is the amount
of owner earnings that are attributed to every dollar initially
invested. This is true of both fixed income securities (where owner
earnings are bond coupons) as well as stocks. While returns fluctuate
in the short run, in the longer run they reflect accruing earnings.

If a society places magic faith into some asset because some
professors claim that this asset will make them rich by means of a
miracle, and everyone buys it, then the logical outcome of this will
be that the price of it will rise. By the law of mathematics, the
amount of owner earnings per dollar invested, will decline in inverse
proportion t othe price paid. That, in turn, will mean that the
collective of owners will earn a lower return.

What this means is that a recommendation that may work for an
individual investor -- such as "put more money in stocks" -- will NOT
work if everyone tries to follow it and everyone competes for the same
asset. All that these reallocations accomplish is changing relative
prices of asset classes.

The fallacy of applying individual recommendations like "put more in
stocks" to the whole collective, is called "fallacy of composition"
and is well known. The simplest example would be a crowd or people
watching some performance. While it may make sense for an individual
to stand on his toes to get a better view, if everyone does this, no
one will be better off.

The wealth of all of us collectively is determined by what we produce
as a society, minus our debt to foreigners, not by relative prices of
pieces of paper. Changing how much we value certain asset classes does
not change that, at least not by much and not directly.

In our specific example of "investing social security in magic
securities", the effect of that would be that the prices of those
securities will rise, the society as a whole will not become richer,
but it may seem richer for a while and underreserve for the future
expenses of caring for old people. The hopes will turn into
disappointment.

The Republican behavior in trying to obfuscate this rather simple
reality, was a big turnoff to me.

As things stand, I am not really poor and do not have a vested
interest in "taxing the rich" and such things. But I do try to
recognize realities that exist regardless of what is my immediate
financial interest, or my love of guns.

i