Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Northeastern University, believes the government should "privatize" the retirement portion of Social Security--i.e. put it where it can accrue interest but remain government-administrated. (The portions providing for Medicare and disability would stay where they are.)

	"If you're a 20-year-old and you put a dollar away in 
a Standard & Poor 500 company," says Kotlikoff, "you can 
expect, when you're 65, that that one dollar, in real 
terms--after inflation--will be worth $13.76. That's a 
huge opportunity for young people in terms of saving. But 
right now, that fantastic opportunity of saving through 
the market has been eliminated because we're stuck in this 
ongoing Ponzi scheme" (i.e. pyramid scam, wherein the 
early suckers--at the narrow top--are paid off with money 
put up by saps coming in later on who may never collect).