Bush advisers push controls for Social Security investing (gov inv for you

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-28-social-security_x.htm

Bush advisers push controls for Social Security investing
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush's advisers have settled on a proposal for structuring the personal accounts they hope to create in Social Security, while on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats were launching an effort to defeat the plan altogether.<snip>

By default, workers would be enrolled in a "life cycle" account, in which investments become more conservative as investors age, if they do not choose one of the other options, according to two officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

<snip>
In devising a structure for the private accounts, the Bush administration is modeling its proposal after the Thrift Savings Plan, a tax-deferred retirement investment plan similar to a 401(k). The idea is to minimize risk for people at the outset by offering as few as three to five diversified investment funds.<snip>

Under the emerging Bush plan for Social Security, the default investment would be a "life cycle" account. It would begin with investments that have greater potential for both risk and reward and shift to safer bonds as a worker ages, officials in and outside the administration said.

The government would be responsible for keeping track of how much money is in each worker's account and give the lump sums to a financial services company to invest, a mechanism aimed at keeping administrative fees low, they said.<snip>

...and then when you're older, sticks what's left of your retirement money into bonds.

Hey, the Social Security Administration already has invested in bonds in the Trust Fund. So what's the difference?

Answer: With Social Security, the average retiree gets several hundred thousand dollars. With the BushCo plan you get a big box of stock certificates suitable for wallpapering the basement and a one-time payout of a few thousand dollars, all that's that's left in your account after massive losses and sky-high fees.

Remember Enron!