Social Security
I haven't really said that much about social security - but that's mostly because it's too ghastly to think about, not because it's not important. Anyway, here is a good place to start.
In trolling around the web today I noticed a couple of things about social security that made me angry (only a couple? well, I am trying to get some work done at the same time). First off, notice whenever you read about "personal" accounts. They're not saying "private" anymore because that would scare people.
Secondly, they keep saying that over time, the stock market goes up. Well, duh, sure, and so if you could choose when you were going to age, that would be fine. But since you have to take your money out at a certain point, you still have a good chance to be royally screwed. An good example of this is the place where I am working. The employees all have really good stock purchase options, so a lot of them have a lot of the company stock as their retirement plan. And the stock has performed really well. Until an investigation was started into some of the company's practices, and then the stock tanked. The woman who works next to me, a secretary, lost about $45,000 overnight. And sure, that stock will probably climb its way back up, but if my co-worker wants to retire any time in the next 5-8 years while it's still climbing, she's screwed. Now multiply that by millions if the whole market tanks, and we are all screwed.
(later edit: looks like I'm riding the wave in noticing this. check out this on Al Franken.)
In trolling around the web today I noticed a couple of things about social security that made me angry (only a couple? well, I am trying to get some work done at the same time). First off, notice whenever you read about "personal" accounts. They're not saying "private" anymore because that would scare people.
Secondly, they keep saying that over time, the stock market goes up. Well, duh, sure, and so if you could choose when you were going to age, that would be fine. But since you have to take your money out at a certain point, you still have a good chance to be royally screwed. An good example of this is the place where I am working. The employees all have really good stock purchase options, so a lot of them have a lot of the company stock as their retirement plan. And the stock has performed really well. Until an investigation was started into some of the company's practices, and then the stock tanked. The woman who works next to me, a secretary, lost about $45,000 overnight. And sure, that stock will probably climb its way back up, but if my co-worker wants to retire any time in the next 5-8 years while it's still climbing, she's screwed. Now multiply that by millions if the whole market tanks, and we are all screwed.
(later edit: looks like I'm riding the wave in noticing this. check out this on Al Franken.)
posted by chiniqua at 1:54 PM
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