Quote of the Week...from George W. Bush

I want America to be an ownership society, a society where a life of work becomes a retirement of independence.                                                           George W. Bush

An Associated Press article appearing February 2, 2005 on the NBC News website gives the above quote of then-sitting president George W. Bush, who was promoting changes in the Social Security law to allow for people to opt for personal retirement savings accounts.  Later in the article Bush...when he was Texas governor...was also quoted as saying "Ownership in our society should not be an exclusive club...Everyone should be part owner in the American dream".  Taken together these two quotes reveal a lot about the philosophy of our former president...a philosophy that appeals to me while scaring others...

There's a lot of rumbling going on in Washington about Social Security becoming insolvent in a few years as the Baby Boomer generation settles into retirement.  I think it's a good idea for Americans to think ahead years before their retirement, the earlier the better, and invest more of their earnings into retirement investment accounts that...even accounting for periods of recession...will yield in the end far more than the Social Security check they will receive from the government.  I hope that Social Security will always be there for those who need it, but perhaps it may not look the same in a few years...hopefully the two major political parties will somehow be able to work out a reasonable solution without demagoguing the issue while their eyes are on the next election as they usually do. A lot of the "99%" have an instinctive aversion to capitalism and look down on investing in stocks and mutual funds for their retirement, yet they seem to fail to understand that the hated "1%" invests and invests and invests...

In a more general sense I also agree with Bush's emphasis for people to feel a sense of ownership about their lives.  If you're parents then you will want each of your children to feel a special responsibility about their individual contributions to the home upkeep through regular chores...this fosters a sense of "ownership" that in future years will transfer to the workplace.  And in that workplace...speaking solely from my own personal experiences in different jobs...managers would be well advised in team settings to give specific, regular assignments to each worker instead of throwing them all together into a common rotation pool...the latter is almost always certain to bring down performance while the former gives each employee that crucial sense of ownership over their responsibilities, for which they know they will be held accountable.  If this sounds overly obvious to you, let me just say that there are others who just don't get this example of plain common sense...