I am always amazed when I hear young people complain about how they should be able to invest the money they give to Social Security into the stock market instead. Whenever I ask them how they are going to invest it, they invariably have a friend who knows what he is talking about. Hmm.

They would rather give their money to some Dude selling stocks than to the United States government which, for all its failings, has been around for 250 years supporting a retirement program that has been around for 90 years.

To which I get the response, Social Security is going to run out of money any way. I don’t think so, not as long as a majority of people continue to support it and the government continues to fund it. But, say it does go under, what effect will this have on any money in the stock market. I mean if the largest retirement program in the country stops cutting checks to retirees this will certainly have an effect on the stock market.

So, if I have to gamble, I am certainly going to place my marker on the U.S. government because, if there is an economic crisis at some point, my bets are that the U.S. government will survive much better than the Dude.