pinions of buddy don: chile is the model?

mr bush lacks to praise chile fer privatizin thar penshun system. so how did that work out? thays an articull bout it in the new york times name of Chile's Retirees Find Shortfall in Private Plan (free registrayshun required). tiz wurth a read. heres the quote splainin how mr bush lacks this plan:

Under the Chilean program - which President Bush has cited as a model for his plans to overhaul Social Security - the promise was that such investments, by helping to spur economic growth and generating higher returns, would deliver monthly pension benefits larger than what the traditional system could offer.

But now that the first generation of workers to depend on the new system is beginning to retire, Chileans are finding that it is falling far short of what was originally advertised under the authoritarian government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

heres a quote that splains purty well how thangs wurked out fer them wurkers in chile:

For those remaining in the government's original pay-as-you-go system, the maximum retirement benefit is now about $1,250 a month. The National Center for Alternative Development Studies, a research institute here, calculates that to get that same amount from a private pension fund, workers would have to contribute more than $250,000 over their careers, a target that has been reached by fewer than 500 of the private system's 7 million past and present contributors.

This leaves many Chileans in a situation that has led to the coining of a phrase: "pension damage." There is now even an Association of People With Pension Damage, 157,000 members and growing, that consists of Chileans, mostly former government employees, who find that their pensions, based on contributions to the private system, are significantly less than if they had remained in the old system.

"They come to us in desperation," said Yasmir Fariña, the group's president, "because those who stayed in the government system are often retiring with monthly pensions twice as large as everyone else's."

corse, one group made shore they gut perteckted, witch thats the military:

Chile spends about $2 billion a year to pay retirees from its armed forces, according to Mr. Scolari. The military imposed privatization on the rest of the country, but was careful to preserve its own advantages and exclude fellow soldiers from the system. Despite calls that the military be forced to give up its exemption, no civilian government has been prepared to pursue that.

how bout the rest of the folks? did the program make thangs cheaper to run fer the gummint? not eggzackly:

Over all, Chile has spent more than $66 billion on benefits since privatization was introduced. Despite initial projections that the system would be self-sustaining by now, spending on pensions makes up more than a quarter of the national budget, nearly as much as the spending on education and health combined.

has it wurked out fer wurkers? again, not eggzackly:

"What we have is a system that is good for Chile but bad for most Chileans," said a government official who specializes in pension issues and who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from corporate interests. "If people really had freedom of choice, 90 percent of them would opt to go back to the old system."

Among the complaints most often heard here is that contributors are forced to pay exorbitant commissions to the pension funds. Exactly how much goes to such fees is a subject of debate, but a recent World Bank study calculated that a quarter to a third of all contributions paid by a person retiring in 2000 would have gone to pay such charges.

that means privatizayshun (dont matter nun whuther ye call it personal accounts or sumthin else, tiz still privatizayshun) of soshul securty wood manely be good fer them banks on wall street lack the one whar i wurk on a counta how sumbidy has gut to colleck them fees -- quarter to a third! -- n git richer than thay alreddy is. that means sum folks is a'gone win no matter whut.

wunder if our military is a'gone git perteckshun frum the plan?