"YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS"

Bad Attitudes' Moe Blues on Social Security Privatizing: Pick A Truth:

Using only the most pessimistic projections for future economic conditions, Bush and his privatization acolytes claim Social Security will be bankrupt. “Private accounts,” they tell us, will provide better returns.

These two statements are mutually exclusive. If future long-run economic conditions are so poor that Social Security goes “bankrupt,” then the return on any form of private accounts will likely be flat or even negative. If economic conditions are such that private accounts will grow to provide adequate retirement incomes for all Americans, then Social Security itself will be awash in new money and will not go bankrupt.

It is not physically possible to have it both ways.