it's not often i paste a entire editorial, but this one deserves shouting from the rooftops:

DesMoinesRegister.com: "One of the propaganda techniques intended to undermine public confidence in Social Security is to describe the Social Security trust funds as 'nothing but a bunch of IOUs.'

Well, duh. Name an investment that isn't 'just an IOU.'

Social Security currently collects more in payroll taxes than it pays out in benefits. As a result, a surplus of more than $1.4 trillion has accumulated. This surplus is invested in special U.S. treasury bonds and earns annual interest. According to AARP, Social Security earned $80 billion in interest from this invested surplus last year.
Those treasury bonds are what the Social Security detractors characterize as 'nothing but IOUs' - the implication being that the government won't make good on the bonds when the time comes to cash them in.

What nonsense. In more than 200 years, the U.S. government has never defaulted on its bonds. They're the safest investment in the world. If things ever get so bad that the United States even contemplates defaulting on its debt, the country will have a lot bigger worries than the health of Social Security.

Consider the alternatives. Retirement funds could be deposited in a bank, but certificates of deposit are 'nothing but IOUs' from the bank. They could be invested in corporate bonds, but those are 'nothing but IOUs' from the corporations.

They could be invested in the stock market, the preferred alternative of the Social Security detractors. But stocks don't even rise to the level of an IOU. A company's stock comes with no promises whatsoever. There is only the hope that the company will keep paying dividends and the stock will appreciate in value.

Those who want to privatize Social Security have a right to argue that investing in stocks would be better than the existing system. But they should do it without implying that U.S. treasury bonds are somehow unsafe. In effect, they're saying that the full faith and credit of the United States of America is no good, and that's just plain nutso."