Expert Comment on Privatizing Social Security

from the University of Pennsylvania Law School

Jan. 20, 2005

David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, teaches, researches and writes about corporate and bankruptcy law

"For the first time in history, more than half of all Americans own stock.  With private Social Security accounts, the percentage would leap to 80 percent or 90 percent.  In a world of privatized benefits, a market collapse could be truly catastrophic.  A crash that wreaked havoc with large numbers of future retirees' retirement funds and threw already-retired Americans into reduced circumstances would devastate not just the individual workers but also the U.S. economy and Americans' general sense of well being.  These are precisely the kinds of risks the government should be anticipating and protecting against."

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