Today's Warm and Fuzzy Thought

Ok, I am not finance minded but this is what I understand about the Social Security issue:

• The economic forecasts that Bush uses to calculate that SS is going to be exhausted by 2040, would also mean that our entire economy has come to a halt. What this also means is that his calculations of what the Personal Private Accounts (or whatever they are calling them now) would not have near the return percentage that he is reporting. In fact, if you use the economic forecasts that he is using to sell his privatization plan, then there actually is no Social Security crisis.
• His privatization plan would cost in the trillions of dollars, almost all of which will be paid for in an accumulation of debt. A vast majority of this money would go to paying the account fees for the private accounts. Now, if you were to put these trillions of dollars directly into Social Security, it would completely bail the system out.
  
• Again, I am not a fiscally minded person, however, it would make more sense to me to leave the Social Security system alone and allow individuals to invest more money in 401(k) plans or Roth IRAs. These private retirement investment systems are already in place, and would cost no money to change the allowed contributions. If there is someone out there in Blog land who can explain why this wouldn't work, I would appreciate it.