George Bush and the Republicans (one of which I used to be) have proposed abolishing Social Security and letting individuals invest their own money in most any way the chose.
A lot of British retirees invested heavily in British Petroleum (BP). That seemed to make good sense. BP is one of the largest oil companies in the world and has a long record of profitability.
Now, it looks like the dividends will be suspended and BP may even go bankrupt. So that really good decision doesn't look so good now. How could that have happened?
Nassim Taleb calls such events "Black Swans". By that he means events that are so unlikely as to practically not exist, but if the event does occur, the effects are devastating. Social Security's major function is to protect all of us mere mortals from Black Swans. That is critically important since Republicans don't appear to believe in the existence of Black Swans.
If you want to read more, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book is titled, The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable", and is a Random House book.
And if you want to know how to solve the Social Security problem simply and forever, read our book, "The Great Recession Conspiracy". It is available at www.scribd.com/doc/16864582/The-Great-Recession-Conspiracy for $4.95. It is also available as a Kindle book and a Google book.
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