President Bush Visits Michiana

(Pictures at the bottom)

President Bush came to Michiana (the local designation for the region on the Michigan/Indiana border) to deliver a speech on Social Security at Notre Dame today. WSBT did a horrible news cast of the visit. The speech was barely discussed. Instead, they went to locals and asked them about social security. They interviewed kids to see what they thought. What was really covered in detail was footage of Air Force One and how crowds came out to see it. C’mon people, let’s focus on the speech—not the plane that the President arrived in.

While they were interviewing some of the adults, one guy in particular annoyed the hell out of me. He clearly did not like the President’s plan to allow private accounts. He asked, “who is going to manage the private accounts?” --Depends, on what plan gets passed. Could be the individual, could be the government, could be a broker. “Regular people have no idea what to do with the stock market…” --Well, then they should opt out of the private account. It’s optional. Also, doesn’t it say something about our society when you think that “regular” people can’t educate themselves with the basics? I consider myself a regular person and I started to fill out taxes on my own years ago. If can figure out the US tax code well enough to avoid an audit, then I can do this.

Then we come to the kids. They’ve got the right idea, but understandably they couldn’t communicate it that well. Yes Tiny Tim, don’t expect Social Security to be there when you retire. My “regular” friends know that Social Security won’t be around for them. We’re actually kind of bitter that we still have to pay into a system that we know we won’t benefit from. It’s like we’re throwing our money away. Even assuming that Social Security will be there for us, what kind of return should we expect from our money? I’ve heard 3% at best. However, I’ve also heard that we could expect a negative growth meaning that we’ll get less money out of SS than we put in. Is the stock market a risk? Yes, but I’m not retiring for 40+years. With the stock market averaging close to 10% over time, then it’s a no brainer—let me invest.

In any event, no American should be relying on Social Security for retirement. That’s not what it is for. No one should trust the government to look out for them. There should be a natural assumption that the government is going to screw you over. Let’s be honest, do you really think that the politicians are looking out for you? I’ve worked with them and I know the answer to that. Act as if the government is not going to give you money. Assume that the money that you give to the government is never going to come back to you. Set up your own retirement accounts (note the plural). So far, I’ve set up my Roth IRA, and you can expect that I will be doing a helluva lot more to make sure that I have money to retire and pass on.