…Gary Becker – that rational individuals who have private retirement savings already select an optimal mix of expected return and portfolio risk. On the other extreme, the Cato free lunch…

…return equal to 2%, that’s also the real return on the government bonds in my portfolio. #5 tells us the obvious: reducing some alleged long-term shortfall requires either more revenues…

…portfolio losses. It would be like Luskin – or even Hassett – to compare how Cisco has done in the last five years relative to how it was doing in…

…bond/inflation indexed Treasury bond portfolio after subtracting 0.25 percentage points for transactions costs” In fact the calculator is based on the same “analysis” of the proposal that Mark Thoma rightfully…

…why should we assume that rational individuals would wish to have their overall retirement portfolio risk rise in this way. We have noted repeatedly the Barro-Becker position that individuals would…

…much of their own savings in stocks. Studies indicate that this is precisely what they generally do with their IRAs in order to have a balanced portfolio between stocks and…

In his New York Times oped, Dr. Varian clearly distinguishes between the solvency issue facing the Trust Fund and the risk-return choices individuals might rationally make with their retirement portfolios….

…adjust their 401(K) portfolios between stocks v. bonds so as to achieve the optimal; mix of expected return and risk. If we give them control of their Trust Fund assets,…

…— and no one calls Mr. Perot on the phone and tells him we’re very sorry but he has nothing in his portfolio but “a pile of worthless IOUs.” But…

…only a small portion of their retirement portfolio. This is tantamount to paying for insurance and then not needing it. This happens all the time — every year someone fails…