"vinny" wrote in message ...



Well...as far as the economy goes? The damage of the trade laws reffered
to as a sucking sound set us to crash in 2000-2002. On top of that the
"world trade buildings", yes, that is their name because that's what they
were, the "world" trade buildings literally crashed. World trade was
disrupted for 5-7 years at least. During that time the bush dildo's kept
our economy running at growth levels the whole time. Long after it should
of naturally crashed.
They get an A+ at domestic fiscal thinking.

Where the money went was a 3.5 trillion dollar war. Look, he even managed
to pay for some of that during the time of stress with his good domestic
fiscal policy.
Low taxes, low regulation, and stimulus directly to the people in cash
form. That stuff really works. Hell it just funded the longest war in
Americas history?

The banks....pfft. CRASH AND BURN ASSHOLES! It's worth anything we have to
go thru to end that tyranny on us. Friggen 1%..yah it's really 30,000$ on
your home final price.
Screw that.
And damnit without the crutch of the banks buisinesses will "front or
lend" to their customers because they will have to. Like they did 20 years
ago.



that's funny. i have been wondering if their attempted social security
privatization scheme was an attempt to loot people's social security
retirement money to keep their ponzi scheme going until after the election.
wondering if they knew what was coming and were desperate to get their hands
on huge wads of cash. i'm still "on" about that, seems people have
forgotten, the utter gall of what the previous administration attempted to
do. what would the world look like if people were allowed to have put their
social security money in the stock market? would they've gotten "bailouts"?
i doubt it. there would've been gnashing of teeth for sure. millions of
u.s. citizens retirement money, pfft. how would we as a nation have
remedied that situation? let them starve to death?

b.w.

William Wixon wrote:
"vinny" wrote in message ...


Well...as far as the economy goes? The damage of the trade laws reffered
to as a sucking sound set us to crash in 2000-2002. On top of that the
"world trade buildings", yes, that is their name because that's what they
were, the "world" trade buildings literally crashed. World trade was
disrupted for 5-7 years at least. During that time the bush dildo's kept
our economy running at growth levels the whole time. Long after it should
of naturally crashed.
They get an A+ at domestic fiscal thinking.

Where the money went was a 3.5 trillion dollar war. Look, he even managed
to pay for some of that during the time of stress with his good domestic
fiscal policy.
Low taxes, low regulation, and stimulus directly to the people in cash
form. That stuff really works. Hell it just funded the longest war in
Americas history?

The banks....pfft. CRASH AND BURN ASSHOLES! It's worth anything we have to
go thru to end that tyranny on us. Friggen 1%..yah it's really 30,000$ on
your home final price.
Screw that.
And damnit without the crutch of the banks buisinesses will "front or
lend" to their customers because they will have to. Like they did 20 years
ago.



that's funny. i have been wondering if their attempted social security
privatization scheme was an attempt to loot people's social security
retirement money to keep their ponzi scheme going until after the election.
wondering if they knew what was coming and were desperate to get their hands
on huge wads of cash. i'm still "on" about that, seems people have
forgotten, the utter gall of what the previous administration attempted to
do. what would the world look like if people were allowed to have put their
social security money in the stock market? would they've gotten "bailouts"?
i doubt it. there would've been gnashing of teeth for sure. millions of
u.s. citizens retirement money, pfft. how would we as a nation have
remedied that situation? let them starve to death?

So, it's your money and you think the government is a better steward of
it? do they not have newspapers on your planet?
I guess you will be thrilled when they raise your kids for you and send
someone over to service your wife regularly too then?

I'll save my own money, invest as I see fit, and accept the result
without whining.

On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
So, it's your money and you think the government is a better steward of
it? do they not have newspapers on your planet?

He was talking about Social Security money.

Giving it to Wall Street to manage, does not seem like a good
solution, for obvious reasons. (the money will end up being stolen by
legal means).

I'll save my own money, invest as I see fit, and accept the result
without whining.

The second part of this is always more difficult than it seems.

i

Ignoramus2408 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
So, it's your money and you think the government is a better steward of
it? do they not have newspapers on your planet?

He was talking about Social Security money.

Right. Our money.

Giving it to Wall Street to manage, does not seem like a good
solution, for obvious reasons. (the money will end up being stolen by
legal means).

He was talking about allowing individuals to designate part of it
(half?) to a self-directed fund with limited options, slightly more
risk, but higher likelihood of returns. Still way better than the
current options - zero.

I'll save my own money, invest as I see fit, and accept the result
without whining.

The second part of this is always more difficult than it seems.

I lost 95% of my Roth account in the last year.
I'll be OK.

On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
Ignoramus2408 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
So, it's your money and you think the government is a better steward of
it? do they not have newspapers on your planet?

He was talking about Social Security money.

Right. Our money.

Giving it to Wall Street to manage, does not seem like a good
solution, for obvious reasons. (the money will end up being stolen by
legal means).

He was talking about allowing individuals to designate part of it
(half?) to a self-directed fund with limited options, slightly more
risk, but higher likelihood of returns. Still way better than the
current options - zero.

I'll save my own money, invest as I see fit, and accept the result
without whining.

The second part of this is always more difficult than it seems.

I lost 95% of my Roth account in the last year.
I'll be OK.

Ouch. Sorry. I thought the most people lost would be something like
60%.

So, realistically, let's say that a soon to be retired, or retired man
-- not you, but someone less principled -- loses 95% of his social
security money due to some bad luck.

And then this person has nothing at all for retirement. Do you think
that it would be possible to throw him out to the street and let him
die of starvation. I do not think so.

So what this will end up, is the worst of both worlds, with high
return investors subsidizing low return investors. That creates a
moral hazard of people investing in risky things, such that heads they
win, tails we lose.

The only beneficiary of "let's use Social Security money to gamble on
the latest investment fads" would only be Wall Street.

If you, like me, like to invest money, it is best that we do it
outside of Social Security funds, which are not exactly ours anyway.

i

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

On Jul 24, 3:20*pm, Ignoramus2408
wrote:

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


Thank you.

On Jul 24, 3:45*pm, "William Wixon" wrote:


that's funny. *i have been wondering if their attempted social security
privatization scheme was an attempt to loot people's social security
retirement money to keep their ponzi scheme going until after the election.

On Jul 24, 7:42*pm, Ignoramus2408
wrote:


So, realistically, let's say that a soon to be retired, or retired man
-- not you, but someone less principled -- loses 95% of his social
security money due to some bad luck.
Could not happen under the proposed plan. Less than 50 percent,
probably more like 20 percent, could have been invested in stocks.
And that money would have to have been invested in diversified
stocks. So the person could possibly have lost about 10 percent of
his Social Security retirement. And if you think that Social Security
will provide enough money for retirement without other sources of
income, you are going to have a rude awaking.


And then this person has nothing at all for retirement. Do you think
that it would be possible to throw him out to the street and let him
die of starvation. I do not think so.

So what this will end up, is the worst of both worlds, with high
return investors subsidizing low return investors. That creates a
moral hazard of people investing in risky things, such that heads they
win, tails we lose.

The only beneficiary of "let's use Social Security money to gamble on
the latest investment fads" would only be Wall Street.
Not true.


If you, like me, like to invest money, it is best that we do it
outside of Social Security funds, which are not exactly ours anyway.

So you do not think the Social Security funds are our money? Did the
tooth fairy provide them?

Dan

On Jul 24, 8:20*pm, Ignoramus2408
wrote:
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

I agree with most of what you say. However if you wait until
Christmas stocks may again be out performing bonds. In fact it could
be true today. I am just too lazy to find out. The collective value
of our society is indeed determined by what we produce. The money
going into Social Security does not produce anything now.

Dan

On 2009-07-24, wrote:

I agree with most of what you say. However if you wait until
Christmas stocks may again be out performing bonds. In fact it could
be true today. I am just too lazy to find out. The collective value
of our society is indeed determined by what we produce. The money
going into Social Security does not produce anything now.


The money going into social security is used to pay old people
now. It is not an investment scheme, for the most part.

That said, I want to go back to my earlier statement about stocks
having UNDERrformed bonds for the last 5, 10, 15, and 20 years. I do
not want it to be misinterpreted as me talking down stocks. I never
believe in extrapolating past into the future, this usually does a
disservice to those doing this. The "stocks for the long run" crowd,
and "homes are going UP" crowd, had lost a lot of money because of
this unintelligent extrapolation. Extrapolating the recent losses into
the future is similarly a mistake. The future is much less knowable
than a trend suggests.

I think that this historic underperformance has created an environment
where the future is much better than the recent past. Stock prices
being in a downward trend and having become cheap, tell us the
opposite -- that they are sufficiently attractive now to be much more
interesting that short term cash or "safe" bonds. I can expound on
this if anyone is interested, which is doubtful.

Without counting the value of our house, I am about 90% in various
stocks as of now, I moved our money into stocks over the last fall
through March. I have no short term forecasts on anything, but I am
more comfortable with what I hold, long term, than with cash.

I have no crystal ball telling me what will happen in a mohth or a
year, but I try to avoid doing dumb things as much as I can. I do not
always succeed at this, but my brokerage account outperformed S&P 500
by 4.09% per annum, not counting the effects of taxes, and my IRA by
7.51%, for the last 6 years since 2003. This is not because I am very
smart or a good investor, but I did avoid some some dumb things that
dragged averages down.

i

On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
Ignoramus2408 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
Ignoramus2408 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
So, it's your money and you think the government is a better steward of
it? do they not have newspapers on your planet?
He was talking about Social Security money.
Right. Our money.

Giving it to Wall Street to manage, does not seem like a good
solution, for obvious reasons. (the money will end up being stolen by
legal means).
He was talking about allowing individuals to designate part of it
(half?) to a self-directed fund with limited options, slightly more
risk, but higher likelihood of returns. Still way better than the
current options - zero.

I'll save my own money, invest as I see fit, and accept the result
without whining.
The second part of this is always more difficult than it seems.
I lost 95% of my Roth account in the last year.
I'll be OK.

Ouch. Sorry. I thought the most people lost would be something like
60%.

So, realistically, let's say that a soon to be retired, or retired man
-- not you, but someone less principled -- loses 95% of his social
security money due to some bad luck.

Actually, 52.5% if my math is correct.
Remember, half stayed in the traditional SS fund.

Well, so you and I agree that some money should stay "safe" and immune
already see the SS as that "safe fund". We only disagree on how
much. I think that as it stands, SS is a relatively small amount of
money and thus should all be outside of any sort of speculation.
Halving that amount will not make us richer or safer..

And then this person has nothing at all for retirement. Do you think
that it would be possible to throw him out to the street and let him
die of starvation. I do not think so.

he would have a reduced benefit.
He would make it up by work if possible, family, church.
Just like before SS came along.

Before SS came along, people did not live as long.

So what this will end up, is the worst of both worlds, with high
return investors subsidizing low return investors. That creates a
moral hazard of people investing in risky things, such that heads they
win, tails we lose.

The only beneficiary of "let's use Social Security money to gamble on
the latest investment fads" would only be Wall Street.

If you, like me, like to invest money, it is best that we do it
outside of Social Security funds, which are not exactly ours anyway.

I agree. I see SS as supplemental, which is what it was designed to be.

We may be agreeing more than we thought originally.

i

Ignoramus29034 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, wrote:

I agree with most of what you say. However if you wait until
Christmas stocks may again be out performing bonds. In fact it could
be true today. I am just too lazy to find out. The collective value
of our society is indeed determined by what we produce. The money
going into Social Security does not produce anything now.



The money going into social security is used to pay old people
now. It is not an investment scheme, for the most part.

That said, I want to go back to my earlier statement about stocks
having UNDERrformed bonds for the last 5, 10, 15, and 20 years. I do
not want it to be misinterpreted as me talking down stocks. I never
believe in extrapolating past into the future, this usually does a
disservice to those doing this. The "stocks for the long run" crowd,
and "homes are going UP" crowd, had lost a lot of money because of
this unintelligent extrapolation. Extrapolating the recent losses into
the future is similarly a mistake. The future is much less knowable
than a trend suggests.

I think that this historic underperformance has created an environment
where the future is much better than the recent past. Stock prices
being in a downward trend and having become cheap, tell us the
opposite -- that they are sufficiently attractive now to be much more
interesting that short term cash or "safe" bonds. I can expound on
this if anyone is interested, which is doubtful.

Without counting the value of our house, I am about 90% in various
stocks as of now, I moved our money into stocks over the last fall
through March. I have no short term forecasts on anything, but I am
more comfortable with what I hold, long term, than with cash.

I have no crystal ball telling me what will happen in a mohth or a
year, but I try to avoid doing dumb things as much as I can. I do not
always succeed at this, but my brokerage account outperformed S&P 500
by 4.09% per annum, not counting the effects of taxes, and my IRA by
7.51%, for the last 6 years since 2003. This is not because I am very
smart or a good investor, but I did avoid some some dumb things that
dragged averages down.

i


I don't know who is giving you investment advice but by conventional
standards you should be a man in your twenties if you have 90% of your
money invested in stocks. If you are near 60 you are way over invested
in stocks. The older you get the more your portfolio should be weighted
in favor of bonds. 90% investment in stocks is very risky and therefore
you should be getting a very high return if you're not losing money.
People at retirement age or older should be 60% to 80% or even higher in
bonds. Your 90% strategy is a very high risk one. I'm wondering who told
you to invest so heavily in stocks. That is not what a responsible
broker would advise his clients to do. I'm just asking, is the 90% stock
investment strategy one you came up with or did a professional suggest
that? Your age is a major determinant of the percentage of stocks and
bonds you hold in your portfolio. So are you closer to 20 or 60?

Hawke

Ignoramus29034 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, wrote:

I agree with most of what you say. However if you wait until
Christmas stocks may again be out performing bonds. In fact it could
be true today. I am just too lazy to find out. The collective value
of our society is indeed determined by what we produce. The money
going into Social Security does not produce anything now.



The money going into social security is used to pay old people
now. It is not an investment scheme, for the most part.

That said, I want to go back to my earlier statement about stocks
having UNDERrformed bonds for the last 5, 10, 15, and 20 years. I do
not want it to be misinterpreted as me talking down stocks. I never
believe in extrapolating past into the future, this usually does a
disservice to those doing this. The "stocks for the long run" crowd,
and "homes are going UP" crowd, had lost a lot of money because of
this unintelligent extrapolation. Extrapolating the recent losses into
the future is similarly a mistake. The future is much less knowable
than a trend suggests.

I think that this historic underperformance has created an environment
where the future is much better than the recent past. Stock prices
being in a downward trend and having become cheap, tell us the
opposite -- that they are sufficiently attractive now to be much more
interesting that short term cash or "safe" bonds. I can expound on
this if anyone is interested, which is doubtful.

Without counting the value of our house, I am about 90% in various
stocks as of now, I moved our money into stocks over the last fall
through March. I have no short term forecasts on anything, but I am
more comfortable with what I hold, long term, than with cash.

I have no crystal ball telling me what will happen in a mohth or a
year, but I try to avoid doing dumb things as much as I can. I do not
always succeed at this, but my brokerage account outperformed S&P 500
by 4.09% per annum, not counting the effects of taxes, and my IRA by
7.51%, for the last 6 years since 2003. This is not because I am very
smart or a good investor, but I did avoid some some dumb things that
dragged averages down.

i


I don't know who is giving you investment advice but by conventional
standards you should be a man in your twenties if you have 90% of your
money invested in stocks. If you are near 60 you are way over invested
in stocks. The older you get the more your portfolio should be weighted
in favor of bonds. 90% investment in stocks is very risky and therefore
you should be getting a very high return if you're not losing money.
People at retirement age or older should be 60% to 80% or even higher in
bonds. Your 90% strategy is a very high risk one. I'm wondering who told
you to invest so heavily in stocks. That is not what a responsible
broker would advise his clients to do. I'm just asking, is the 90% stock
investment strategy one you came up with or did a professional suggest
that? Your age is a major determinant of the percentage of stocks and
bonds you hold in your portfolio. So are you closer to 20 or 60?

Hawke

On 2009-07-27, Hawke wrote:
I don't know who is giving you investment advice but by conventional
standards you should be a man in your twenties if you have 90% of your
money invested in stocks. If you are near 60 you are way over invested
in stocks. The older you get the more your portfolio should be weighted
in favor of bonds. 90% investment in stocks is very risky and therefore
you should be getting a very high return if you're not losing money.
People at retirement age or older should be 60% to 80% or even higher in
bonds. Your 90% strategy is a very high risk one. I'm wondering who told
you to invest so heavily in stocks. That is not what a responsible
broker would advise his clients to do. I'm just asking, is the 90% stock
investment strategy one you came up with or did a professional suggest
that? Your age is a major determinant of the percentage of stocks and
bonds you hold in your portfolio. So are you closer to 20 or 60?

I am 38. I heard many such asset allocation suggestions about how
asset allocation should depend on age only. This way of thinking is
very dangerous and can lead to ruinous consequences at worst, and
mediocre returns, at best. (though we learned in the last year that
there are things much worse than mediocre returns). I never believed
in any "asset allocation" advice that would disregard asset prices.

This age based allocation advice, essentially, leads one to overpay
for expensive assets (such as treasuries yielding zero, or stocks at
the P/E of 40 like in '2000), and to not buy enough of the more
attractively priced assets.

My allocation to stocks occurred not because of some formula involving
my age, or phase of the moon, but because I think that (stocks are
cheap enough to give me a decent returns over a long enough period of
time, even if some things go wrong. Essentially many enough people are
so scared, that stock prices now reflect their fears in the price, and
are thus much safer to own than if they only reflected very optimistic
projections in the price.

Prior to the collapse, our 401ks were all in cash, for example, and my
stock investments were 40% of our net worth, in a relatively
conservative stock, for similar reasons. (I thought that there was too
much optimism, and did not have any other, more specific insights
other than concern about the level of US debt, which played out
completely differently from my expectations). Now the 401ks are 100%
in stocks and so are the IRAs.

I also think that the theory of "volatility is risk", which is
implicit in age based asset allocation, is also complete bunk. Risk is
not in value of holding jumping up and down, it is in the possibility
of permanently losing money due to overpaying.

I have no clue as to where stock prices will be in the near future,
but I am comfortable that having bought 10 cents of earnings per
dollar invested, I will do OK after a decent enough period.

My own planning also involves a calculation that odds of significant
(but not necessarily hyper- ) inflation down the road are
underestimated by investors. In this case buying Treasuries may become
a very expensive strategy and owning them may be much risker than many
"asset allocators" are assuming. Put simply, what is the usefulness of
a "stable dollar value" of a portfolio, in case of "unstable value of
the dollar".

As far as who gives me investment advice, I never seek any investment
advice from any advisors, financial planners, and other such people,
for a variety of relatively simple reasons. I do not think that an
investment advisor would add much value for me personally. I also flat
out never take any stock tips.

i

Ignoramus29034 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
Ignoramus2408 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
Ignoramus2408 wrote:
On 2009-07-24, RBnDFW wrote:
So, it's your money and you think the government is a better steward of
it? do they not have newspapers on your planet?
He was talking about Social Security money.
Right. Our money.

Giving it to Wall Street to manage, does not seem like a good
solution, for obvious reasons. (the money will end up being stolen by
legal means).
He was talking about allowing individuals to designate part of it
(half?) to a self-directed fund with limited options, slightly more
risk, but higher likelihood of returns. Still way better than the
current options - zero.

I'll save my own money, invest as I see fit, and accept the result
without whining.
The second part of this is always more difficult than it seems.
I lost 95% of my Roth account in the last year.
I'll be OK.
Ouch. Sorry. I thought the most people lost would be something like
60%.

So, realistically, let's say that a soon to be retired, or retired man
-- not you, but someone less principled -- loses 95% of his social
security money due to some bad luck.
Actually, 52.5% if my math is correct.
Remember, half stayed in the traditional SS fund.

Well, so you and I agree that some money should stay "safe" and immune
already see the SS as that "safe fund". We only disagree on how
much. I think that as it stands, SS is a relatively small amount of
money and thus should all be outside of any sort of speculation.
Halving that amount will not make us richer or safer..

I agree, except that I do not feel the SS fund is safe under govt
control. Congress seems all too willing to tap into it for purposes
outside the intended use. It should have 3rd rail status


And then this person has nothing at all for retirement. Do you think
that it would be possible to throw him out to the street and let him
die of starvation. I do not think so.
he would have a reduced benefit.
He would make it up by work if possible, family, church.
Just like before SS came along.

Before SS came along, people did not live as long.

So what this will end up, is the worst of both worlds, with high
return investors subsidizing low return investors. That creates a
moral hazard of people investing in risky things, such that heads they
win, tails we lose.

The only beneficiary of "let's use Social Security money to gamble on
the latest investment fads" would only be Wall Street.

If you, like me, like to invest money, it is best that we do it
outside of Social Security funds, which are not exactly ours anyway.
I agree. I see SS as supplemental, which is what it was designed to be.

We may be agreeing more than we thought originally.

Very likely