It sounds great, to be in control of your retirement plan. To make the investments you want to make when you want to make them. To be in control of a plan that has the flexibility to meet your particular retirement needs.
And Americans now have more choice than they’ve ever had with their retirement plans. It was given to them by the massive shift in the private sector from traditional pensions to 401(k)-like plans. With traditional pension plans participants have no direct say over how plan assets are invested. With 401(k)-like plans, they have much more say.
That is an appeal proponents of Social Security privatization are also making. Privatization would mean investment freedom. Instead of assets being invested in low yield treasury bonds, as they are now, participants could choose among Wall Street’s myriad products to maximize their gains.
– Huffington Post