I'm glad someone is listening to him. I didn't even turn the TV to see him.

I'm sorry, but I'm against him in all ways. If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here to take the Libertarian side ;).

So, we have a declining number of workers paying each retiree, right? How is putting a fraction of those dollars into private investment accounts going to help? There isn't enough money now to pay the retirees, won't putting part of it into investment accounts reduce the pay-out pool even more? The money can't grow unless it is in the hands of the investment.

Seems to me that the only way to do this is to increase payroll taxes. The result of that is a government forced IRA, where the investor has no control over how much of their income is invested. I don't see how this is a good idea.

the fed's need to stop taking money out of the soc. sec fund ( money they don't replace ) to pay down the debts of the govt. ! i don't want them investing my money , since they can't manage the money they already have .

Sad but funny this morning on NPR.

They went to a bunch of old people at a nursing home to ask them what they thought about the President's proposals. They found one guy who said, "We have billions of dollars in the Social Secuity Fund. The Republicans say it's not there. Of course it's there, just like any other bond."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4476512 (about 1 minute in)

What the guy doesn't understand (and NPR wants you to not notice) is that the trust fund is in bonds issued by the US government. So it took money out of one pocket (the SS pocket), put it in another pocket (the general accounts), and then put an IOU from the general accounts pocket into the SS pocket, and calls it a "trust fund."

At the two minute mark, we get a story about the 1929 crash as a reason why we shouldn't put money in the stock market.

Sigh.

Speaking of Libertarians, I've got a chucklehead who posted in my LJ, trying to convince me that unemployment insurance and forcing people to take jobs is an idea from the "economic right." His proof? Well, the US is a "hard right economy" and we have not only taxes, but subsidies!

The mind boggles. I can't figure out the best way to respond to this numbnut.