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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Here is a later excerpt:

In any case, Social Security could capture the return on stocks, without 
putting individuals at risk, by investing in equities directly. This would 
also achieve another frequently stated objective: keeping the government's 
hands off the Social Security trust fund. That option would be far more 
efficient, in economic terms, than separating the money into 150 million 
disparate accounts. Costs are much lower for one big investor. And more 
important, in a system of individual accounts, benefits will vary with 
individual choices, and some people will make poor ones. In Sweden, where 
the retirement system has included private accounts since 2000, the 
majority of Swedes made excessively risky investment choices by putting 
money into stocks at the market top, according to Richard Thaler, a 
University of Chicago behavioral economist. Finally, pooling the investment 
pools the risk, and thus reduces the danger of retiring at the wrong time. 
In a system of personal accounts, someone who retired after a market crash 
would be out of luck.