Social Security reform: analysts fear that government could manipulate the market

• Government officials would - and they'd do it by limiting investment options to a few index funds.
• It's not hard to envision special interests pressuring Congress or the White House to require the Social Security investment funds to exclude certain stocks- or to use inclusion of certain stocks as leverage to force companies to change their ways.
• For example: Suppose a fund held shares in a tobacco company, or in a company being sued for sex or race discrimination.
• Suppose the fund owned stock in a company that sells products made by sweatshops in China.
• Also politicians would have an even stronger incentive than they have now to use US fiscal and monetary policy to create a perpetual bull market and keep the economy and markets artificially booming.
• That's because the bigger personal accounts get before retirement, the smaller the traditional Social Security benefits would be - and the less it would cost the government.
• Because limiting investment options to a few index funds would in effect channel hundreds of billions of dollars into a few thousand, or even a few hundred, companies, thereby excluding thousands of others.
• Though proponents of private accounts focus on the benefits of letting individuals control their investments, it is hard to imagine how Washington would keep hands off when Social Security provides such a large and compelling target.
• With backing from the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, the legislation would require the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (which oversees the federal employees' savings funds) to include a real estate investment (REIT) trust fund among the five investment options available to federal employees.
• After 20 years of existence, the Thrift Savings Plan now has approximately $130 billion in assets.