Yahoo! News - Bush Says Raising Retirement Age a Possibility

Yahoo! News - Bush Says Raising Retirement Age a Possibility


Interestingly in my last statement from Social Security my retirement age for full benefits is already 67, and I fully expect it to be 70 by the time I am old enough to draw benefits.

There is one assumption I think that Bush is missing in this - we are all comfortable with investing in stocks & bonds. Most of the people I know (including myself), all of whom are very intelligent, don't have much of a real clue as to what constitutes a good investment. Worse yet we do not necessarily have the time to spend to follow the markets or the money to pay someone to do it for us. If people were serious about individual investment accounts (which, BTW, sounds a lot like the 401(k) or similar programs we have now) then maybe teaching about investing in, say the public schools, would be a good idea.

RANT ALERT - In a country that prides itself on its economic system we do very little to teach our children how to make use of that system. When I was in school unless you took an accounting class you did not necessarily learn even how to balance your check book or how compound interest works. Maybe over the last 20+ years things have changed, but for some reason I doubt it. If people want the whole idea of personal investment accounts to fly (which I am opposed to only because of the governmental control) maybe we should be teaching kids about how the markets work in high school so that everyone IS comfortable with investing in stocks & bonds.