30% to 75% Monthly Returns

[stone]

Pointed Stick

This appears to be a fundamental difference of opinion on what makes society happier, and I see you're on the side saying that people are happiest when they don't have to care about the details of the systems they rely on. You seem to want for people not to have to care about things like retirement savings, medical care, and other typical functions of social welfare programs. I however fall into another camp, one that says that people are happiest when they understand and have some measure of control over the systems they rely on. I want people to have some "skin in the game" so to speak.

I'm all for everyone understanding how social security works and your description of it is spot on

Any pension issued by a government that has a fiat currency will be able to provision it *somehow*. .......a generalized entitlement--accompanied by a general tax to remove a roughly equal amount of money from the economy to tamp down inflation

What I struggle with is the idea that it is somehow reprehensible for the government to pay out a modest pension to all old people. I guess I would prefer it if the whole charade of payroll tax supposidly linked to social security were done away with and instead everyone just got a pension out of government funds in the way that military pensions are paid. I sort of view the whole saving for retirement enterprise as an entirely dispensible and pointless exersize that everyone has to waste time over. I know people benefit from being in command of their own destiny and I also know that governments can't be trusted - I just wish that governments could be. It also puzzles me that governments can better be trusted not to confiscate private pensions than to honour state pensions. I agree that that is how it is but it still puzzles me.

[Pointedstick]

Stone, I don't think it's reprehensible for the government to pay out a modest pension to all old people. I just don't think that I should be forced to participate if I don't want. I took my Libertarian hat off a few pages back and pragmatist-me fully admits that there are a lot of people who will hit old age and have no idea how they're going to pay their expenses once they retire and the medical bills start to pile up. That's why dictator-me would continue the government old-age pension system; he would just let people out if they wanted out.

I know people benefit from being in command of their own destiny and I also know that governments can't be trusted - I just wish that governments could be.

You and many others--myself included. But unfortunately, I think we have to admit that governments don't have a great track record. Even in cases where the motives are compassionate, the perverse incentives created by bureaucracy and insulation from market forces often result in poor outcomes anyway.

My parents are counting on pensions from a state government (i.e. not a currency issuer) that has promised out more than 160 billion dollars that it doesn't have and has no idea how to get. I'm worried for them, and I'm worried about everyone else who counted on those promises. That's why I think people need to learn how to do things like retirement planning for themselves--even those who don't really like learning the details of the systems they rely on and prefer a big collectivist "we're all in it together" enterprise.

Because in the end, the only person you can truly rely on is you. If you can provide for yourself, you have confidence in knowing the limits of your own abilities so you can be reasonably sure of what you'll get, but if you count on others to provide for you, you're gambling on their competence, generosity, and wealth once the time comes for you to get your share.

[stone]

Pointed Stick, I concur