Tuesday, February 15, 2005

What Part of Voluntary Don't You Understand?

One of the dumbest arguments against Social Security reform that I've seen goes along the lines of "I don't want a personal account because I don't know how the stock market works/don't want to deal with another complex choice/etc." If vast majorities of Americans really feel this way, the opposition shouldn't bother trying to block reform--we could simply enact voluntary private accounts and watch as no one used them. One suspects, however, that the opponents of reform are so passionate because they realize exactly how many Americans (particularly young Americans) realize what a bad deal SS is, and how much some of us are willing to pay to even partially be able to get out and invest our retirement savings in a non-pyramid scheme.

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