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April 15, 2005
The big issue in the US is the Bush administration's policy to partly privatise Social Security by directing some of the Social Security payroll taxes to accounts invested in stocks and bonds.
Under one version of the President's reform, younger workers (under 40) would be allowed to opt-out of most of their social security payroll taxes. Instead they would put aside 4% of their income in a personal retirement account which they could invest in the stock market. The workers can dabble in stocks and shares, earn some good money, and become new stock-owners.
This Republican proposal is seen as as the first step to the complete privatisation of social security.
Nick Anderson
Presumably the Wall Street free marketeers would say that the government has no business running an insurance service. The welfare state should be opposed on principle as the free market always yields the best of all possible worlds. So it is a good idea to allow workers to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market. Support the Republican privatization plan and help build an ownership society.
I mentioned the welfare state. To the average yank that means all that hammer-and-sickle/ socialist stuff so loved by the foreign Europeans. It means the kind of state interference that is not tolerated in the freedom-loving USA, where a man stands on his own two feet, fends for himself and fights to ensure that everyday life is free from Big Brother.
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Gary, Isnt this just a rerun of the Savings and Loan scam of the Reagan years. The Bush boys did very nicely in that scam too.
John