Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth

Re:Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth by lutorm on Thursday August 12, 2010 @12:37PM (#1598516)

Social Security is not bankrupt. It has massive assets, and is fiscally sound until sometime in the 2040s. The problem is that the government has borrowed that money and used it for other stuff. It now needs to start paying it back, but that's no different than any other loan you make.

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Re:Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth by yummyfajitas on Thursday August 12, 2010 @01:04PM (#1598581)

The government has massive liabilities precisely equal to it's massive assets. I could loan myself $100 billion dollars, and then claim I own $100 billion in assets. But if I earn $25,000 and my expenses are $35,000, I'm still broke.

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Re:Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth by anamax on Thursday August 12, 2010 @01:26PM (#1598630)

> [SS] has massive assets

Those "massive assets" are T-bills.

If push comes to shove, who do you think will get shafted - SS or China?

More to the point - how much are you personally willing to pay to maintain the SS benefits for folks 10-20 years older than you? How much do you think that folks who are 10-20 years younger than you are willing to pay to maintain your SS benefits?

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Re:Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth by jbooth on Thursday August 12, 2010 @01:45PM (#1598686)

What happens if we put it all into the stock market and the baby boomers retire?

I really don't want to see a stock market that has 3x the money coming out as is coming in.

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Re:Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth by anamax on Thursday August 12, 2010 @06:38PM (#1599442)

The stock market is ownership of various kinds of assets. The demand for those assets will change. However, it is world-wide. And, there are income producing assets. Folks are saying "I'd rather have an iPad than $400 even though I know that that ipad costs only $35 to make".

T bills are a claim on future US tax revenue. That's very different.

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Re:Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth by jbooth on Thursday August 12, 2010 @06:54PM (#1599466)

You didn't even begin to address my question, you just threw out a bunch of hand-wavey silliness about how "ownership" and "assets" makes everything ok.

What happens to the prices of those assets when the baby boomers retire and are pulling out more money than there are young workers putting in? You have the same problems as SS. What if we had all of that SS money in the market? It'd be a disaster.

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Re:Megan McArdle: The Great Stock Market Myth by anamax on Friday August 13, 2010 @02:38AM (#1600235)

The whole world didn't have a baby boom at the same time.

WRT companies that produce stuff, the critical time is not when boomers retire, it's when they stop spending money. Fortunately, many will stop when they die, which reduces demand and the "load" on both the stock market and SS. Again, the whole world thing is relevant.

And, since boomer spending is income for later generations....

Do you really think that money invested in the stock market is like SS obligations? (Here's another difference - Congress can repeal SS whenever it feels like it.)

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