  Well today I had a lung transplant support/informational meeting. It was really depressing for me to go to. First off I am glad I took my notebook because the computer the docs had there to use wouldn't recognize the USB flash drive the speaker had...it was an older Dell model with Windows 98 on it so it would't run without the proper drivers. So the laptop came in handy. The information I recieved was really a bummer. First out of the thousand or so patients that came in for evaluation for transplant only about 48% percent were accepted. I am through that phase. There are a bunch of other numbers as well but it boils down to that only 13% of the original thousand make it through transplant.
CF patients have about a 48% transplant rate in all. If I had a different, less virilant lung disease I would have a much greater chance of making it through it all. It is just a little depressing. I know that I have as good a chance as anyone but the numbers are daunting and frightening. Well tonights discourse is about Social Security and the push by people on both sides of the isle, as well as many banker lobbiests', to privatize Social Security and its benefits. Now the rational is that the private market can make more money for the retirees in the stock market or even the most conservative of money market accounts. Yes it is true that if a person were to take the equal amount of money that Social Security witholds from the paycheck and put into a money market or riskier stock fund that person may make more money than what the returns would be on just the straight payment to the SS system. However there are two problems to that whole way of looking at it. First is that Social Security was never intended to be a retirees sole income but it has become a safety net for many many people. The deposits that many workers make into the system really have no value. Sure you can go look up potential benefits that you may get it really isn't there. You cannot reliably calculate annual percentage returns on Social Security because of how it works. If when you retire you have substantial savings or holdings of value your SS benefit will be less, the less you have the greater your benefit will be.
It has very little to do with what you put into the system. However you are guaranteed to get out of the system more than what you put it. Who know the total "percentage return" you will see but it is nice to know that you will have something. The second big problem even larger than the first is that if you invest money you had better be prepared to loose it.
Investing is almost as risky as gambling. In a casino if you have a large bank roll and play blackjack you have about an equal chance of walking out with at least as much money as you walk in with. Playing the stock market is like taking 100 bucks and hitting the poker tables. Sure you may win a lot of money, but more than likely you will loose money. The stock market is for the rich. If you have tons of money you can diversify and hedge your bets (investments) and you will always be ahead. If you are a small player then you will probably break even in the end, but the risk is great that you could loose it all.
Look at the stock market bubble the burst in 01'. How many people lost everything. Tons...if it weren't for SS for some of those people who did all the right things (saved, invested, and are frugal in retirement) lost their savings and now rely on SS just to buy food. Now the bankers and investment firms would love to get a hold of the literally trillions of dollars worth of SS money. It would be trillions because they would have to transfer people who have been paying for years but aren't retired to these new accounts, plus all of the people currently paying in and new workers each year. For the government to privatize it all would cost the taxpayers trillions. Now for the real reason why they want to privatize the whole Social Security system.
Or at least this is what I see. All of the ultra rich have vast holdings. Much of it in the stock markets. This money is tied up, if they were to start selling off these vast holdings it would drive the stock prices down, hence driving what they can get out of the stocks down, thus leaving them less wealthy then they were before. Laws of supply and demand work here. Their very own motto and creed kicks in free market economics. If there is a huge supply and little demand the prices are low, if there is a large demand and small supply the prices remain stable or rise.
Over the past years the stock market hasn't performed as well as many would like so some legitimately want to get out and save their money, but imagine what would happen if say Bill Gates said that he was going to sell all of his Microsoft shares off. The price of Microsoft shares would drop, not because the company is unsound or bad, but because the market will be flooded with openly available shares of Microsoft (think about it now as a bidding war...20 million shares available we'll say, 18 million owned, 2 million floating around, and someone outside of the 2 million wants to sell 1 million shares...price drops slightly). Now what will all these people do with the money they would be able to take out of the stock market if public money (social security savings accounts as Shrub would say) became available.
They would move to good ole' commodities. The rich are both smart and dumb. In the near future there will be famine and drought (we are seeing it now in its begining phase) and if you own commodities like wheat or corn not only does your wealth grow but you also own so much of this or that. With that you can go and get it physically to feed your family. You can eat wheat and corn, you can't eat stocks.
Another problem is that these "savings accounts" won't be insured so if someone screws up and your money vanishes (as it tends to do on wall street) you have no recourse. Since there will no longer be Social Security as we know it you don't get anything. It is a play to get the poor mans money and give it to the rich man. If they get this infusion of cash many wealthy people will cash out of the stock market and many others will simply steal the money as we have seen at Enron or Tyco, and many others.
The "experts" say that we need to do it now. The system is broken! It will crumble tomorrow. Well even they admit the system will be able to pay out until 2042 at current growth rates and that Social Security will remain solvent until then. With minor tweaks it will work until 207?. The main tweak is that people who make over 88 thousand a year pay more in SS tax. That is the big thing about SS right now a person who make 79,999 dollars a year pays the same as a person who make 4 million a year. So as you go lower on the pay scale the percentage of income paid to the system goes up, and the more you are paid the lower the percentage you pay into the system.
Bill Gates pays that same amount of Social Security Tax as a person who make 88 thousand a year, yet he is paid far more money. The tweaks would extend the number upwards a little. What is unfair is that Bill Gates will be able to draw Social Security of some amount and will get something similar to my grandmother per month yet he hold vastly more in property and stocks than she does...but he will still get the same money.
She has paid more of her wages in percentage over her lifetime than Bill has percentage wise. The Social Security system is really the poor helping the poor and the rich riding the poor for more cash as well. Social Security is run on the backs of the poor...but to privatize it would mean its demise and you will only be able to be able to afford Social Security because it will no longer be an entitlement. You will have to be able to afford to retire and afford to be part of the Social Security system if it changes. So when politico's come before you and say "the social security system is broken! it costs to much, we need to raise the retirement age, and if we don't privatize it the system will fail". Just reply "BULLSHIT! " The Social Security Administration is the most efficient according to Jim Hightower with only 1 percent overhead. There is no investment house or bank that has lower overhead. So don't kill a system that works already...and will continue to work for some time. Think...plan...act. Fight the power, buck the trend, be smart and confuse the leaders, use their words and studies to make them look like the fools they are. Peace 
