Sir:
I am seeing more and more blog entries and TV comments about your proposals to make Social Security private. I know because this is a DailyKos diary you will probably never see this, but I wanted to put it out there anyway.
Here is a quote from you that I grabbed from
TPM LiveWire
"If we actually accomplish this goal of personalizing Social Security, think of what we will accomplish. Every worker, every laborer in America will not only be a laborer but a capitalist. They will be an owner of society," Ryan said at the 2005 event, according to a profile written last year in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
I am a senior citizen, and already have my SS taken care of. However, these past couple of years have been a great worry for me. The only thing I could definitely depend upon was that my social security check and my Medicare needs were there if and when I needed them.
I watched with horror as my IRA account lost almost half of its value as the economy tanked because of the Wall Street failures. I have been trying to prudently manage my IRA funds, but there was just no way to do that as the market crashed in 2008. There was a notice that I didn't need to take out the RMD for 2009. Well gee, that was neat, but actually I needed those extra funds just to pay the mortgage and other necessary living expenses like food and utilities. I live in a nice home, but there are still bills to pay above and beyond what SS provides.
There is also the fact that I have been dabbling in the stock market for several years before I retired. I have spent some of my hard earned resources studying how to just make a bit of a profit in the stock market. It takes hard work and concentration to make any kind of a profit in the market. My point is "How do you expect a hard working craftsman or other 9to5 working person to have the time to manage his or her portfolio?" My career was a software engineer, so I have some of the necessary background to understand the technical underpinnings of the market, but I doubt that a person with only a high school has the background for it. Much less the time to do the regular homework required.
But you say, I can get a stock broker to manage my account. Yeah sure, and who gets the profit from that? Why the broker of course. Which brings us right back to the Wall Street/Main Street thing again. They make the money and us Main Street folks are the losers again.