On 4 Feb 2005 04:52:23 -0800, "basskisser" wrote:


Now, have you seen the latest stupidity in the Washington Post?

It's not stupidity. Everything in the article has been researched, and
verified, unlike you, who makes wild assumptions, and posts things that
are not true about others.

Now, I ask you, isn't that atrocious?

It sure is, I wish you'd quit posting such atrocities.


Gosh, researched and verified, huh? Do you reckon that's why they
printed this retraction yesterday evening?

************************************************** ******

--------------------
Friday, February 04, 2005


--------------------
Correction: Personal Finance Newsletter


Folks, sometimes mistakes happen. The Personal Finance weekly e-letter
that went out earlier today quoted extensively from a Washington Post
article that was substantially updated and corrected after the
e-letter was sent to subscribers.
In writing off that article, I said President Bush failed to disclose
all the details about his plan to add private accounts as an option in
the Social Security system. I noted that the original Post article
about the president's plan said workers would only be able to keep a
portion of the total amount their personal account accrue over their
working years.
That's not the case, as Post reporter Jonathan Weisman makes clear in
the corrected version of that article: "[W]orkers who opt to invest in
the new private accounts would lose a proportionate share of their
guaranteed payment from Social Security plus interest. They should be
able to recoup those lost benefits through their private accounts, as
long as their investments realize a return greater than the 3 percent
that the money would have made if it had stayed in the traditional
plan."

And, more to the point, the amount workers contribute to their
personal accounts -- and all the gains those accounts earn over the
years -- "would belong to the worker upon retirement, according to
White House officials."

You can read the new version of the article he " Participants Would
Lose Some Profits From Accounts."

Here's how I still feel about the president's Social Security agenda
-- I don't like it. If very smart Washington Post reporters can have
trouble dissecting the complex details of the plan, then it's going to
be even harder for the rest of us.

Yes, workers will own their personal accounts, but there are no
guarantees that those accounts will earn more than what the system as
currently constructed would deliver. As I wrote two weeks ago in my
e-letter, "I believe the winners will be some wealthy Wall Street
types who are already jumping for joy at the prospect of earning
billions (yes, that's billions with a 'b') managing the millions of
private accounts that would have to be set up under the Bush
administration's plan."

I will continue writing about the Social Security debate in this
e-letter and in my newspaper columns. Please keep sending your own
thoughts to .
-- Michelle Singletary

P.S. The rest of this week's e-letter contents -- from the reader
comments on Social Security to the income tax tips and Color of Money
Book Club announcement -- stand as they are, so don't toss out the
earlier e-mail until you've had a chance to check out those other
items. --------------------
************************************************** ****

Doggone reporters, they'll do you in every time, basskisser,
especially when their crap is 'researched and verified'.

Now, were you lying about the research and verification, or did you
just make an error. :)



John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes