Ron Chernow Quotes

Do I want to see people take their Social Security payments and put them into private accounts, open up an eTrade account and go into the stock market? Absolutely not.

In other words, Social Security is every bit as insecure as the stock market.

Employees did not only have their money in their 401k’s. They had their lives in those 401k’s ... today most people have most of their money in public stocks ... and the government regulates very little of this.

A lot of the money in the stock market is really our national retirement plan, for better or worse.

Stock market risk is ok, but not for Social Security.

As you know President Bush has been traveling around the country trying to sell his new Social Security plan. He wants to take our retirement money and invest it in the stock market. He says nothing can go wrong. I'll mention that to Martha Stewart the next time I see her.

We really haven't had very much experience with people funding their retirement out of the stock market, and we don't know, frankly, how it would work under every scenario.

For people who have for been putting their hard-earned money into the system for years, the president's idea would replace their safety net with a risky gamble with no assurance of a stable return of investment.

I was a stock broker once. I think there is an absolute place for market investments. But they should never be the basis of one's retirement. They should be an additional piece on top of a basic, secure, guaranteed retirement benefit.

Even people who feel perfectly comfortable investing in the stock market and owning their own homes often have qualms about individual medical accounts or Social Security private accounts.

Because of my own experience with market fluctuation, I recognize the great risks one takes on investments. This converts the Social Security safety net into a risky proposition many cannot afford to take.

Under Reagan came the idea of putting your pension plan in the stock market, which wasn't a guaranteed pension.

I am very concerned about the millions of baby boomers who are counting on the stock market to deliver them a safe, sound, long retirement. I am afraid the baby boomers who are counting on the stock market are in trouble.

To allow all U.S. workers to put part of their earnings into private investment accounts would definitely erode the Social Security system and cause uncertainty for new investors.

Ask the shareholders of Enron how they would feel about privatizing Social Security.

Throughout the Great Recession of 2008, the average 401(k) balance lost anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of value. Nobody was more harmed than baby boomers or recent retirees, who, unlike younger workers, didn't have the time for the market to rebound or were no longer contributing and therefore unable to invest when stocks were cheap.

First of all, the Social Security money belongs to Main Street, not to Wall Street. It needs to be said very clearly here that privatization is off the table... Social Security, as a matter of fact, is a better investment now than the stock market. There's a higher return. There's guaranteed cost-of-living increases. Privatization you have to worry about the value of your account.

You could lose hundreds or thousands one day on paper and gain it all back the next, and it has literally no effect on your immediate future, provided the money you have in the market is money you're investing for the long haul (meaning at least three to five years).

Our seniors' retirement should never rely on the bull of political promises or the bear of the market.

But with a rate of return of 1.6 percent or less, or a negative rate of return, our children and our grandchildren, if we do not make changes, will in fact not have a secure retirement. Indeed, they will not have the funds when they go to retire to even minimally get by.

Yes, prudently invested contributions to the Social Security fund may bring greater dividends, but those contributions would also face a greater risk. It would be like gambling. We should not gamble with the investments and the future of the citizens of this land.

The rate of return on Social Security for people nearing retirement is about 1.5 percent. By the time young children like mine are ready to retire, that rate of return will be a negative percentage.

Pension reforms, like investment advice and automatic enrollment, will strengthen the ability of Americans to save and invest for retirement.

Privatizing Social Security will take dollars out of young folks' pockets.

However, the Administration's plan to privatize Social Security will undermine retirement security for all Americans by cutting guaranteed benefits by more than 40 percent, and risky private accounts won't make up for the loss of benefits for millions of Americans.