Bush held onto this thread an inordinately long time, and if the stock market would have shown better gains in his two terms he probably would have done it. The real problem is marketing. A tactic which works well for them (Medicare D) is to float a completely ambigous bit of legislation, then poll the American people, who are so naturally confused that they vote along roughly equal lines, pro and con. Then they spin those numbers for the 5% edge they need to run it past Congress. COngress passes a completely foggy bill, and the lobbyists and their lawyers make they want of it.

Ultimately it's not an issue, its a marketing ploy. Can Wall Street be trusted with the Social Security Trust Fund? Since they're all good Americans, the answer must be yes. Is the stock market safe? Well with Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve backing the markets, you would think so. There is no ideological point of view opposing such a bill, except maybe Al Gore's famous lock box (get ready to hear more about that). To make a cynical point about the safety of those assets, the government has already borrowed against its assets to a point where few of them, even if they were in a lock-box would escape the deliterious effects of poor economic policy.

In the final outcome government will probably have to strip out the entitlements from SSN and try to preserve the retirement benefits. Ultimately if the stock market tanks Social Security will face shortfalls, just like every other government spending program. Wall Street and the US Treasury are now so intricately interwoven, that one cannot prosper without the other. Stock Brokers are the new class of civil servants, and should someone have the political courage to put everything on the up and up, we could regulate the stock market, and control wages,bonuses, and speculation.

But Bush had a list of far reaching Uber-Socialist ideas, which infuriate the core of the Republican party, and privatizing Social Security is really one of them. The plan is not a giveaway to the robber barrons who summer in the Hamptons, the plans brings them into the fold. It shouldn't be a shock to anyone if Democrats buy into it, and a moderate President, such as McCain would be able to get it through, were he elected.

Forget about driving around the country in a Winnebago. The days of working in the private sector, and making a comfortable retirement are finished, and the next generation will be at the government trough.

Republicans are historically hostile to government unions, Reagan busted PATCO as his first official act. Many state employees are in retirement systems with no transparency, or freedom whatsoever. When the stock market goes down and the value of the retirement fund goes down, they raise the mandatory contribution of the employees. Wall Street is in front of all these transactions, taking their fees, and making bonuses.

It all goes back to the change in the way stock certificates are handled, the pooled assets rule, which allows brokers to buy and sell stock without transferring the title. If you own a Treasury Bill at broker XYZ you dont' really own it, and if the broker has a liquidity problem you have to get in line with all the asset holders.

There are no easy answers in how to handle your retirement account, because if you choose safety, inflation might eat you out of house and home. If you chase results, like the stock market, you risk greater losses, and you are barely keeping up. Bill Gross recommends Emerging Markets, which is the final insane idea to cap this all off. Okay you can't trust Treasury Bills, so you're going to buy Argentinian bonds? (hyperbole)

If you own some property and the property has some commercial value you might have the best solution.

NBC should have their license to broadcast news revoked

My favorite Russert moment was when he was questioning Powell, through a satellite hookup, from the Dead Sea. It was right after the Iraq war, and Russert put some tough questions to the Secretary of State, and magically the camera went off of Powell, and pointed into the distance. Russert asked him what was wrong, and you could hear the plaintiff voice of the former General asking someone named "Elizabeth" to please put the camera back on him. Russert laughed, and the administration propaganda machine flexed its muscles.

As long as the Bric countries subsidize oil, increasing production will only make the problem worse. If they wanted to help slow Asian demand they should increase prices until demand falls off. That's textbook economics.

While Bush makes one last effort to catch Osama Bin Laden, Congressional Democrats should vow to make one last effort to impeach the President. The primary catalyst to the forfeit is humiliation. The Democrats have yet to drive that dagger home. To that end I think Obama has already decided to use the bully pulpit to speak against racism, hatred, and blood revenge, a tactic Repoublicans roused to justify the Iraq war. By appealing to the lower ten percent of the electorate, they squeaked out a close, bitter victory. Obama plans to humiliate those people sufficently that they will stay home in the next election. Clinton was trying to draw them into the tent. Thank goodness the party made the right choice. Republicans need to have their nose rubbed in it, and all those Democrats who went along deserve a shove as well.