[Oceander]

If it's what the unions have been talking about, it is the seizure of all private retirement arrangements, which would be placed into a single federal pot of money. If it's to be invested in treasuries, then that's just a boondoggle - there won't be any money left over, period - which is precisely what the fascists in Argentina did in 2006. This is a boondoggle because it would replace your own funds, owned by you, held for your benefit by a private custodian, and segregated from the claims of that custodian's other creditors, with a single gigantic IOU from Uncle Sugar that could not be negotiated or otherwise sold on the open market, and which could therefore only be paid by raising new taxes.

This is precisely the same sort of boondoggle that Social Security is in right now, and it is why Social Security is bankrupt now, because current revenues are less than current payments of benefits, and that big, fat "special" treasury bond issued for the benefit of Social Security is nothing more than a general, unsecured claim against future general tax revenues which, because the federal goverment will be running massive deficits for all eternity if Obastardcare remains in place, can only be repaid if new taxes are imposed and new tax revenues raised.

In short, if this arrangement goes through, any money of yours that goes into that system will be lost, as effectively as if you had just paid "protection" money to some stereotyped mobster in a b-grade movie.

[SUSSA]