To
"privatize" means to take a government program that is run on a non-profit basis
and give it to a private business to run on a profit making basis.
What
does "Privatization of
Social Security" mean?
To the people who
are pushing privatization it means several things.
1) Invest all or
part of the Social Security Trust Fund, which will be 1.8 trillion dollars by 2009, in
private businesses, not in US Treasury Bonds. In short this means investing our money in
the stock market.
2) Instead of a
government run program with guaranteed monthly payments, each individual would have an IRA
account. Each individual would have to invest the money in the stock market. You would pay
a fee to the investment brokers that handle your account. If you pick the wrong stock, or
if the market crashes when you are retired, then its your tough luck, because nothing is
guaranteed. You will face a poor retirement.
Many variations on
these themes are being proposed. All of them lead to the end of Social Security as a
government program that is guaranteed and run to benefit the working people of this
country. All of them will lead to a return to the days where everybody had to fend for
themselves, by themselves.
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