"For conservatives, it is crucial that the truth about the nation's entitlement obligations be communicated to the public ahead of the 2012 election. Boomers need to know that they are not responsible for the impending shortfall, and younger voters need to understand that the burden falling on them is not the fault of their elders. It is the fault of a government that raids the nation's retirement fund to pay for ever greater spending on unconstitutional programs.
During the era of the greatest bull market for both stocks and bonds in American history, the [Social Security Trust] Fund's real return has ranged between 1.6% and 0%.
Compared with returns in the private market, those returns are dreadful. Not to single out one fund, but the Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund, a popular option among retirees, has returned 10.23% since 1970. Had investors entrusted only $100,000 to the Wellesley Fund in 1970, in place of the estimated $250,000 in 2011 dollars that each boomer will have contributed over a lifetime to the Trust Fund, that investment would now total nearly $5,000,000. Instead of merely getting back what they paid in, or less, boomer retirees would have been driving Bentleys and flying off for spa vacations in Anguilla. "
[American Thinker]
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