Preliminary Proposal by Debt Commission

[Jim in CT]

[QUOTE=RIJIMMY;810465]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Let me put my contributions into an S&P 500 Index fund, I'll have 5 times the nest egg that I'd have if you put it in t-bills. At the state and local level, SOMEBODY NEEDS TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY "NO MORE!!" to municipal unions.

QUOTE]

Im in an uncomfortable place here, I hope you guys dont think im turning lefty. I agree with alot of what Jim said,,,,,,except the comment above. Why?
If the above happened, I would never work again for the rest of my life.
Why?

If an SP 500 index fund was offered as an option for SS investments. The stocks in the SP 500 would go through the roof, guaranteed! I would take out every loan I could and put it all in an SP index fund and after a few months that the program was open, sell it all and make a fortune. Understand?
Markets are supply and demand and having that volume of cash pumped into the stock market would make prices soar

OK, you absolutely have a point there. So I'll modify my suggestion and say you spread the investments into something even broader than the S&P 500. But my point is (and I htink it has a lot of validity) that is we want to pretend that we care about the viability of social security, we need to get a decent return on the money before it's spent on benefits.

There will be more retirees who are living longer, and fewer workers paying taxes into the plan. The math just doesn't work unless you're generating some kind of return.

Finally, if the money was put into the S&P, and those stocks went up, almost every American benefits from that, because most of us have some stake in the market.

Will some benefit more than others? Absolutely. Does that mean it's better to let the whole plan implode, rather than let a lot of people do OK and a few get rich?