Bush is doing more of his choreographed, staged propaganda nonsense, this time with Social Security. And the chosen target as props? Under-30-year-olds. I guess they can remember their lines better.

As Wall Street veteran Steve Leuthold recently wrote, when it comes to the public picking and choosing where to allocate their private accounts, "President Bush maintains the average person will make 'reasonable choices.' My past experience indicates they won't." He continues, "the public typically boatloads at market peaks (when everything looks great) and bails out at the lows (when all news is bad)." I have 15+ years experience in this game and I agree with my colleague Steve. Year after year, if you were to follow the public's investment choices you'd be very unhappy with the returns.

I'm not saying people don't have a right to follow their own instincts and make their own decisions. That's all fine and dandy. It's just that history shows the public has a fairly abysmal record when it comes to this task and worse yet, when many of these folks have little to show for their efforts years down the road, do you think the government will just stand idly by and let them suffer? If you say "yes" than you're naive. Instead, to avoid nasty headlines of hunger and people out on the street, the government will have to step in and bail out these millions (?) of individuals. And who will pay? Yup, the taxpayer.

So keep dreaming people. A very wise saying, "Watch what you wish for, you just may get it."