Social Security funds don't belong in stocks, lawmakers tell Clinton By Reuters, 01/16/99
>ASHINGTON - Dozens of Democratic lawmakers told President Clinton yesterday they strongly oppose >creating individual Social Security retirement accounts that would allow workers to invest in the stock >market.
>A letter signed by more than 40 Democratic members of the House and Representative Bernard Sanders, >an independent from Vermont who helped write the letter, said privatization of the nation's retirement >system "poses some unacceptably dangerous risks."
>The Social Security system faces increasing financial strains when the baby-boom generation, born >between 1946 and 1964, begins to retire. Enough taxes are currently being collected to pay Social Security >benefits and to build a trust fund. But the trust fund is expected to be exhausted by 2032.
>The letter said that with some "minor adjustments" the Social Security system would be able to cope >financially with the retirement of the baby-boom generation starting in about 2010.
>"Social Security should not be considered as an investment policy," the lawmakers wrote. "It should, to as >great a degree as possible, be considered as an insurance policy - protecting us from poverty in old age, >from the economic risks associated with disability, or from the loss of a spouse or a parent."
So that explains Milton Friedman's screeching in a NY Times Op piece, "Social Security Chimeras"
Jan 11.
He pooh-poohs the idea that Old Age and Survivors Insurance is insurance. Instead, he says it's all part of a Government confidence racket. Later, he calls it a Ponzi scheme. He is trying to forestall the obvious objections to privatization.
I was charitable in my critique of his piece (in soc.retirement), and attributed the misinformation in his op-ed piece to incipient Alzheimers.