corrente

David Callahan of the Christian Science Monitor reports:

At the height of the boom, however, the bottom three-quarters of American households owned less than 15 percent of all stock. Barely a third of households hold more than $5,000 in stock. Most Americans have more debt on their credit cards than money in their mutual funds.

Stock-market gains have reflected the top-heavy ownership patterns. Between 1989 and 1997, the most recent year for which there is good data, 86 percent of stock market gains went to just the top 10 percent of households. Yet when the market tanked, it was often ordinary investors who felt the sharpest pain - pain that many will cope with well into retirement. According to a March survey by Greenwich Associates, major retirement pension plans lost $1 trillion from the beginning of 2000 through beginning of 2003.

Sure! Privatizing Social Security! That's the ticket! If you want campaign contributions from the brokers, anyhow.