At 03:26 PM 2/19/2005 -0800, Doug Pensinger wrote: >If people want private accounts >there are plenty of ways for them to do that without Uncle Sam's help.
I think our difference is that I would like to see an increase in personal responsibility for retirement. For example, it is essentially a given that most people do expect (or at least should expect) to reach an age where they wish to have engage in consumption while not working for income. What, however, is the optimal amount of savings for retirement? After all, every dollar saved for retirement is a dollar of foregone consumption today. For sake of argument, lets presume that savings are turned into an annuity upon retirment, thus the question is - what is the optimal-sized annuity upon retirement? And that's an important point, retirement should be planned-for today by choosing to forego a certain amount of consumption and investing that capital to build a stockpile for funding one's retirement annuity. The current system of just hoping that future generations will vote for the government to make payments to you in your retirement seems like a substantially inferior system. JDG _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
