[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I'm surprised they aren't looking at the "Chilian Model" as an answer, much as the GOP is trying to do on a limited scale. The successful results are right before their (and our) eyes.

The "Social Security Trust Fund" is simply two sets of books. It looks like an asset on paper, but since it's invested in government bonds it is an equal-and-opposite liability as well; the bonds are simply an instrucition to take the money out of the Treasury.

The only way out of this box is for the SSTF money to be invested in real assets such as stocks or mortgages on privately-owned assets.

Socialism is a system for seperating responsibility from authority.
And that is both injustice and bad management.

[Lefty-NiceGuy]

The only way out of this box is for the SSTF money to be invested in real assets such as stocks or mortgages on privately-owned assets.
Wouldn't one way of doing that be in paying off some of the debt? The bond market competes with for example the morgage market. If we cut spending and used the money to pay off some of the debt, issuing less bonds, wouldn't that free up money of private investors to invest in the economy?

Some countries like Norway have negative debt, so they can loan money out to businesses. Too bad we're not there yet! I look at Social Security as a debt just like the regular nation debt which Americans are responsible for.