This from the man who criticized Al Gore's "fuzzy math." As part if his campaign to overhaul Social Security, Bush delivered a speech where he made this claim: if someone had directed their Social Security taxes into the stock market instead, he would have three times as much monthly retirement income. This is technically true. However:

But to get that $3,700 a month, a person would have to invest every penny of his retirement savings or Social Security payroll taxes in the stock market his entire work life.

"That is ill-advised at best and unconscionable at worst," said Harold Evensky, a principal at Evensky, Brown & Katz, a financial planning firm in Coral Gables, Fla., that is part of the Alpha Group, an influential caucus of financial planners.

Not only does the example require the investments to have been made in the best period of stock market investment returns in history, Mr. Evensky said, but it also does not account for how an investor would probably have reacted in periods of stock market losses.

posted by Paul Murray at 3:45 PM | permanent link