A few thoughts to add to Kim’s excellent post below about opposition to private accounts for social security. This whole argument that the accounts won’t be protected if the markets collapse is like saying homeowner’s insurance is no good because it won’t protect you if a large asteroid collides with the earth. If the capital markets go down the drain the entire economy will have crumbled, and getting our social security check will be the least of our worries. In that scenario, private or no private accounts, we would all be economically doomed.
Given that there appear to be more experts that say a devastating asteriod is likely to hit earth than there are experts fortelling the demise of our country’s economic foundations, perhaps we can move on to an intelligent debate on the subject.