USAGE

Social Security is the only social insurance retirement program that the U.S. government guarantees as an investment. Since inception of the program, every qualified recipient has received every check promised. Now entitlement critics want to set up private accounts and make them mandatory by law. However these mandatory payroll deductions will be managed by private investment companies with no guarantees of return on investments. If the market loses, then you lose. It's going to be your risk, as are all your other investments. To those financial advisors who eagerly look forward to guaranteed fees for their investment services to manage private accounts, I say also make a guarantee. For all private accounts you manage, guarantee baseline performance such that investors will receive back, at a minimum, the principal actually invested plus cumulative inflationary increases of the investment principal for the total term of the investment. If you don't deliver on this promise, then agree to pay these shortfalls to investors for your failure to meet fiduciary responsibilities. Failure to make up investment shortfalls means you permanently give up your professional licenses.

Many serious critics are asking Americans to get serious about mounting national debts, principally due to future entitlement spending. One solution keeps cropping up in their writing and public comments: privatization. The typical proposal being floated is for 2% of your payroll check to be invested by private, for-profit fund managers, probably folks who are now tied to established retirement investment companies. If the serious critics are to be taken seriously, I challenge them to pledge in writing and through public communications NEVER to profit personally from privatization, not the critics themselves nor their families. Otherwise, we can assume their primary motivation is a drive for economic gain, not fiscal responsibility. Let's see who is willing to accept this challenge and go on the record.