For decades SSA took in more money than was spent, which makes sense, since there was/is a demographic bubble nearing retirement that will need funds. This led

For decades SSA took in more money than was spent, which makes sense, since there was/is a demographic bubble nearing retirement that will need funds. This led to a surplus on order of $4T. Holding this in dollars, which deflates around 2% a year, would lose $80B annually in value. To prevent this, law requires investing the money in a safe place, which is non-marketable securities. Nothing else has this level of backing. For 2016, this earned 1.8% for the fund [1], which would be $72B on 4T, a benefit of $152B. Every month hundreds of B mature, get sold, any excess reinvested. All this can be tracked easily publically [2] and elsewhere. The current holdings are 2.8T with an avg interest rate of 2.9% [2]. I find the current system far better than simply putting dollars into a bag. How would you design such a system with the same risk profile while not losing ~$150B a year that the current system maintains? [1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/fundFAQ.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/fundFAQ.html [2] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/investheld.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/investheld.html