Doug, two things:—

1. The deduction from my paycheck for Social Security was, among all the other deductions, relatively insignificant, and since I kept track of what I would receive at retirement, I felt fairly sure that, although I would not be living in the lap of luxury, at least I wouldn't starve. But as they say one should do, I also invested in a couple of mutual funds and a number of other things that a financial advisor friend suggested. These were quite conservative investments, definitely not considered speculative. So in essence, I was already putting some of my money into the market. But not my contribution to Social Security. That, as the name indicates, would keep me relatively secure if other things didn't pan out. During the current dip in the market, aggravated by outright corporate banditry, the mutual funds are not doing very well, and of course the Lucent Technologies stuff, pending investigation, seems to share the fate of Enron, WorldCom, and the others. Were it not for the fact that currently my Social Security is secure, I could be in pretty deep doo-doo. Why should one reduce one's Social Security contribution to invest in something chancy? It seems like using your rainy day fund to buy into the Saturday night poker game. Kinda dumb, if you ask me.

2. All of the annual and quarterly reports from Lucent Technologies that I, as a stockholder, received painted nothing but the rosiest of pictures. And there was nothing—absolutely nothing—in the news until a couple of days ago that Lucent was in any kind of trouble. The buggers lied to the stockholders. It's as simple as that. And the Securities and Exchange Commission, of course, was sitting there with their thumbs up their butts noses. Even if they had been disposed to do their job, Bush's very recent proclamation gutted the SEC's ability act to protect the interests of stockholders when they're supposed to. Looks like a sop to shaky corporations. And it sure as hell isn't going to make potential investors in the stock market have confidence in the safety of their investments. What's that going to do to the economy?

Like I keep saying, be sure you don't spend so much time looking at foreign policy that you fail to notice what's going on at home.

Don Firth