What if everyone owned shares of stock in public companies?
There seems to be a lot of class warfare in this day and age. Poor people blame rich people for their circumstances in life. Government takes from the rich and gives to the poor in an effort to make things fairer. Some people think that everyone should be 100% responsible for saving for their own retirement. Other people think that the government should provide for everyone who is retired. Both systems are flawed to some degree.
If everyone was 100% responsible for their own retirement savings, then you would have a lot more homeless old people who have made too many poor choices with their money throughout their lifetimes. On the other hand, if government were responsible for providing for 100% of our retirement income, then we would likely pay more than 50% of our income in taxes. Oh wait, some people already do that.
What if you could devise a system where everyone including the poor people were actually required to partake in some of the same habits as the wealthiest Americans do? What if everyone was forced to invest money in American private sector public companies through DRIP (dividend reinvestment programs) or something similar? By getting every single American invested into a number of public companies, you would be increasing the awareness of the average person. Then maybe people would realize that profits are a good thing not a bad thing. People would realize how important companies are instead of thinking that it is us versus them.
I am not sure how you would do this exactly. I think this was part of the idea that the Bush administration had planned for social security at one point. You would need to have a public option that allows people a chance to get a better return on investment. At the same time you would need to have a fallback plan so that no person could over leverage himself to the point of retirement plan bankruptcy. Could a system like this really work?
