.. to run the numbers and find out the cut in benefits that would be required by someone who chose privatization back when it was first proposed.

DJIA up 10% in past 7 years, or roughly 1.4% per year.

30-year treasury bill average = 5.3%

So, back of the napkin, of a half of your social security went into stocks, and you had the additional management costs, you'd see a benefit cut of about 40%. If you had it all privatized, you'd see benefit cuts of nearly 80%.

Now, maybe that's not fair to extrapolate from the last 7 years. Let's say you worked for 30 years and had the last 7 years as we have. In that case, with full privatization, your benefits would be... about the same. Over the last 30 years, privatization would gain you NOTHING.

It's amazing that the last 7 years have dragged the Dow performance down to T-bill levels.