Bush plan leaves few ownerships rights to owner of the account

Other than your name on an account, your rights are limited to being able to choose only among the three stock index funds and the bond fund. You couldn't withdraw any money before your retirement, even for a serious illness. And when you turn 47, the government would automatically switch their accounts into a "life cycle portfolio" that is designed to gradually shift them from stocks to bonds over the second half of your careers.

And on that glorious day when you retire and can withdraw funds, you are hit with a "tax" - or if you like - a big brother who takes your money to buy an annuity for you so the new lower guaranteed Soc Sec benefit does not mean you starve once you run through your cash (albeit you starve from day one!!! :-) )Most likely you will be in the half of retirees who then have nothing in the way of a lump sum after that subtraction! And the size of your Soc Sec benefit will still starve leve if your account was not lucky - or should we say wisely invested? And those heirs - well you do noy have survivor benefits on that annuity - and you do not have a lump sum - so they are worse off than your dependants/spouse/parents would have been under the current system.

And as for political temptations - the Socialism by the back door fear of the GOP - the idea that was used by Greenspan to shoot down the Clinton idea of investing directly in equities via the Trust buying equities rather than gov bonds - the Bush plan still has a new government entity that would manage and run all private accounts - private accounts where an activist President could purge the three indexes of tobacco stocks, or add military stocks - and it would be just as easy to do as it would be if the Trust Fund owned shares in the same indexes. And Bushes idea ends up with less safety for the retiree - as the risk is not equally spread as it would be if Social Security did the equity investing.

You pay up front, get nailed with responsibilities, and when the lease is up, you end up with nothing.

In this case, you pay into this sucker, get at least 15% taken off the top for "service fees" and when you die, it's all gone. Your heirs get nothing.

Better to stick that money under a mattress. There's no service charge, and when your heirs go through your bedroom, they find a windfall.

:-(

This takes a mind on at least the magnitude of a shell gamer.
Which shell is it under?

I don't even understand the market, and this still offends me.