There must have been a reason the Roosevelt generation tagged the program, “Social Security.” It represented social insurance for everyone’s old age, regardless of circumstances. Circumstances can change. The plan was not intended to cater to fund managers, institutional investors, big-box marketeers, or the wealthy. It might have been more accurately called the “Workers ROI (return-on-investment) Fund” but it was not. We have to assume that “social” pointed to something bigger than a mere financial return.
The news around Social Security has an uncomfortable sting. During the 1920s until the Crash of 1929, small investors were lured into funds by the sheer power of making money. Now, with the blessing of government leaders and big business, small investors are being lured into the market with the big stick of an insecure old age. And luring citizens into the market is crucial if one’s political strategy is to get so many citizens dependant upon “market” forces that it manages to convey ever more political control to the Wal-to-Wal-Marts, pharmaceutical companies, and petroleum and weapons riggers.
Investment choices have been perceived historically as rugged individual, free-market-based choices. The newly proposed “choices” towards privatizing Social Security largely represent a farce to anyone who has played the market and lost—to anyone forced into the market when it was low and forced back out again on a low note; and to anyone who has read the new proposal.
Due to greater financial savvy among the general public these days, Wall Street knows it now has to scramble to sell its legalized monopoly gambling somehow to young Americana.
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