Can you decipher the crap written by the AARP here????

The AARP has come out flatly against the proposal by President Bush to allow people to divert some of their social security payments into private accounts. On the front page of their website titled AARP research, they provide a link to an article Problems Encountered with Private Accounts in the United Kingdom.

According to the barely decipherable article on a similar program instituted by the UK in 1997, the AARP is asserting that private accounts have hurt some retirees.

Individual accounts have been a bad deal for many workers. Many workers are worse off by having taken the VCO. Due to many workers' lack of financial sophistication, pension service providers who have a financial interest in workers choosing accounts, even when those accounts are inappropriate for the individual worker, may have taken advantage of those participating in the VCO system. That problem has occurred in the UK, with the "pensions mis-selling" scandal; more than two million people bought accounts when they would have been
better off remaining in social security.

However, they make the assertions without any hard facts presented there. Also, given that these people were 'hurt', there are no numbers to say by how much. The article is also silent on everyone else. If some were hurt, did some benefit? Does it make sense to use the experience of others to ensure that the mistakes made elsewhere are not repeated when this legislation is written? Will there be a population of people where private accounts may not make sense in the USA? We know this to be the case and it has already been discussed. Are the population of British laboreres that were 'hurt' the same groups that the USA deems to be too old for private accounts to make sense?

In fact, it appears, without a very clear statement or discussion in this poorly written piece, that the people that were 'hurt' were lured into this program inappropriately. If it is because these people accounts were too small or that they were too close to retirement for it to make sense, then why doesn't this article discuss it more comprehensively?

With 'information' like this to stoke the fears of people, AARP is doing a great disservice to the American consumer by neither presenting the facts nor providing any alternatives. The AARP should come out and state why they are so agains thtis proposal. It appears to me to be a sensible alternative for younger workers to salvage their Social Security while current and soon to be retired baby-boomers suck the system completely dry.

The people that run the AARP must be nothing but a bunch of greedy do nothing seniors that are trying to protect their legacy of this unearned and destructive entitlement.

Don't do us any favors. Lets run these clowns out of town!!

The Social Security debate.....

Hey all of you....don't do me any favors. If you don't believe in private accounts for Social Security, then you don't have to choose that option. You can opt to keep the old plan and receive payments that you are due.

However, don't you dare to reduce my choice for opting into a private account plan. I didn't interfere your choice to open an IRA or a 401K plan did I?

Furthermore, you seniors, who these changes have absolutley no impact on what-so-ever, butt out. This has absolutley nothing to do with you. But maybe you seniors are worried that if there are any changes, then you will be exposed as the greedy AARP minions that you are and your legacy will be shown to be greed. How can you listen to those clowns? They are the scum of the earth and all I hear from them is give-me, give-me, give-me. Get lost AARP, I have all of you!!

Its been a long while.....

But with the goings on in China and in the US, I am again motivated to put my thoughts online.