Social Security gives the same return as the Market
opebo:
It is incredibly unrealistic to refer to the market's gains since 1980 as in any way typical. During that period they have been far higher than normal. If you average back for say a century or so, you'll find they're really not very high overall.
David S:
What's really unrealistic is for someone to suggest that money paid to social security even qualifies as an investment. You have no investment in SS. There is no money there in your name. If you die you cannot will it to someone else. If your parents had put all of their money into a scheme like social security your anticipated inheritance would be zero.
Also that analysis you used which showed treasury bills outdid the stock market included the early 1980's, a time when interest rates reached their highest ever values.
If someone really wanted a secure investment they could have invested their money in t-bills and achieved the same result as you claim for the ss trust fund. At least then they would actually have the money as opposed to having a promise to pay from SS. But they could have done better yet by investing in AAA corporate bonds which provided a higher yield than t-bills every year for at least the last 25 years. But the best return would still have been in the NASDAQ as I pointed out earlier.
WalterMitty:
oh my. opebo has really been drinking that democratic kool aid.
opebo:
Quote from: WalterMitty on January 07, 2005, 10:41:06 PM
oh my. opebo has really been drinking that democratic kool aid.
'kool aid'? Social security is a fairly mainstream and very minimal social safety net. The idea of returning to a nineteenth century level of inequality and social darwinism is a bit more of a 'kool aid' induced flashback, eh?
Alas, soon to be reality.
The Duke:
Quote from: opebo on January 07, 2005, 05:32:19 PM
It is incredibly unrealistic to refer to the market's gains since 1980 as in any way typical. During that period they have been far higher than normal. If you average back for say a century or so, you'll find they're really not very high overall.
I'm taking a quarter century of economic history, not some three or five year anomaly.
Besides, doesn't your admission that the economy is growing at an abnormaly fast rate since 1980 refute your defense of Democratic economic ideology?
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