This is really important - for anyone who wants to retire someday

Privatizing SS was and still is a scare tactic by Dems - Backwards Typist

From my understanding, it was to be a percentage of a person's SS tax and not the whole SS shebang.  It was to be moved into a SAFE, INCOME PRODUCING fund like IRA's, mutual funds or pension plans and was also supposed to be VOLUNTARY. It would come from the person's individual account, not the system itself. 

Bush discussed the potential impending bankruptcy of the program and outlined his new program, which included partial privatization of the system, personal Social Security accounts, and options to permit Americans to divert a portion of their Social Security tax (FICA) into secured investments. Democrats opposed the proposal to partially privatize the system.  After the Democrats gained control of both houses of the Congress as a result of the 2006 midterm elections, the prospects of any further congressional action on the Bush proposal were dead for the remainder of his term in office.

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The thing that bothered me is all these naysayers stated that Wall Street would stand to gain billions in fees but if anyone knows anything about IRA's through the different offerings, most IRA's only charge a minimal amount; i.e., the accounts I have only take $10 a year in fees if the IRA fallls under a certain dollar amount and expenses are very minimal. You don't even notice a difference.   Can that be so bad? I don't think so. It IS up to the person to understand how IRA accounts work before opening one.  If you don't or can't understand this, then it would be best not to privatize. The following link gives pros and cons of this, plus input from reader's halfway down the page, pro, con, and on the fence.

http://socialsecurity.procon.org/

Like i always say, it's best to do research on your own. I looked at quite a few pros and cons on this issue back then and I would still be for it, but I'm over the alloted age Bush wanted for implementation.  One such page was so wrong, it was pathetic.  Please remember the below source was done in 2005 when this debate/uproar was first proposed.

http://usliberals.about.com/od/socialsecurity/a/SocSecReform.htm

Evidently one source published an article and every 'con' against it was picked up by all other reporting sources on the 'cons'.

Here is an understanding of SS and probably things some of you didn't know. This is in Adobe, and a good read.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/books/itsyourmoney.pdf

This source also gives a pro/con view.

http://www.seniorcitizenjournal.com/2010/09/20/social-security-privatization-pros-and-cons/

It is true that the older one gets, the harder it would be to understand and evaluate the fund's income and outgo and this is why it would be necessary to pick a fund that doesn't need much 'watching'. This is the type I have.

The largest pro to privatization would be the money is there for heirs, while SS goes away, no matter how much you have paid into it and how much you collected from it. If you paid more in than what you collected, you would be on the losing end. I've seen it happen to many friends who worked and paid in all their lives but only collected a year's worth before passing away. So, who got that money?  The government.

Didn't mean to ramble but I just had to reply.

Bush, McCain, Joe Miller, Sharon Angle, Ken Buck - have all supported privatizing.

I was getting 8% before the crash on my IRA. - Backwards Typist

You can lose money with both - so whats the difference?

I repeat, a PORTION, not ALL of SS was to be privatized - Backwards Typist

Go back and listen to your original post video - Its about high frequency trading.

That's right. It's like a gambler who runs out of - money at a casino and then SM