It was a terrible idea, but not because the stock market crashed. It was a bad idea because private retirement savings plans have been a disaster. Those people

It was a terrible idea, but not because the stock market crashed. It was a bad idea because private retirement savings plans have been a disaster. Those people who didn't lose their money playing markets they don't understand in a fit of irrational exuberance get to watch the mutual fund industry nibble away at their capital year-by-year as they charge ridiculous fees for lousy management. The existence of the multi-billion (trillion?) dollar mutual fund industry should be a scandal, when almost no knowledgeable expert would recommend putting your money into one. It's extremely difficult to invest your money wisely when the country's largest industry is constantly trying to persuade you to do unwise things with it. What worries me the most about privatization is the likelihood that the dumb money moving into the markets would induce a Wall Street feeding frenzy, followed by another bubble and subsequent crash. Tens of millions of destitute seniors would demand that the gov't make good on their losses, which would be shouldered by the rest of us.