What does it mean to privatize social security?

Currently social security is a benefit program for the elderly. Those working today pay into a trust fund from which the money to support the retirees is paid. It is not a savings account where the current retirees receive benefits based on the money they put into the system. It is a benefit that is paid for by a payroll tax.

To privatize the system would change the system from a benefit to a savings account. You would put your own money into an account that would be invested in stocks, bonds, or other investment product. Since it is nothing more than an investment fund it is also subject to the variations in the markets. A stock down turn could doom some senior to poverty as their SS investments are lost. However the lucky ones could make out well as their investments grow and they earn more than they would get under traditional SS.

The other concern with privatization is it provides an opportunity for Wall Street to collect billions in fees from the transactions. It is not a way to protect the SS recipients it is a way for Wall Street to make huge profits off the backs of every worker in America.

If you have a 401k or a ROTH IRA, then you already have privatized retirement security. That is all it means, that people will be responsible for their own retirement, because the government isn't managing social security in a solvent way. Conservatives believe that individual people can determine what is best for their own retirement, rather than government bureaucrats. Many Democrats and some Republicans still believe that many Americans are too dumb to do this, so they oppose efforts to privatize it.

Privatize of Social Security means that someone would then be permitted to make a profit and the persons who put money in can loose everything. There would be fee's and people would be at the hands of the stock market. The plus side is if the market is up profits would exist. The reason it has never passed is past experiance with wall street and market minipulation. If the 4 big banks involved in the realestate forclosure scam, then millions of retired persons would never have gotten their checks.

An average mutual fund can produce about a 7% return on investment per year. The united states government could have done that with money going into Social Security, but instead they stole the money and squandered it.

When George Bush first recommended privatizing Social Security he noted that those that didn't want to invest some savings in a 401 type retirement plan (privatized), citizens could continue to keep the SS plan in place. After Liberals screamed he was crazy the subject went dark.

It means workers invest their payments in open markets, like buying stocks or bonds, mutual funds or any other instruments that produce income. No payments would go to the government.

When people are forced to buy
private investments to pay for their own retirement,
that is privatization of Social Security.

The Baby Boomers lost 90% of what they earned in 1970- 1983 in a Savings & Loan crash- a private banking scheme-
that wiped them out- And they lost their retirement again- and again in the Tech Bubble