Anyone who took the trouble to look at the national debt should have realized long ago that there was no money in the so-called trust. Why else would it be 18 percent of the nation's debt? And Treasury securities, all of them, are redeemable only with taxpayer money. That's what makes them "the safest investment in the world."

But few noticed. It took the Secretary of the Treasury, the man who now manages the account, a member of the new President's Cabinet and one of the trustees of the fund to bring it out in the open.

Just the other day, August 7, 2001, the Washington Post printed an article by Allan Sloan, Editor of Newsweek magazine covering the fact that the government is already in the business of supporting home mortgages. The article was titled: "A Ginnie Mae Solution for Social Security."

Mr. Sloan points out that "Owning Ginnies is the functional equivalent of owning mortgages, except that someone else worries about collecting the payments from homeowners....This alone wouldn't solve Social Security's long-term financial problems. But having Ginnies in the trust fund would let us cover a Social Security cash deficit without tapping taxpayer money, at least for awhile. It would buy time. It would help ease the transition to whatever system we may adopt."

It's nice to see someone else finally getting into the fray, especially someone with Mr. Sloan's credentials. We've been hung up far too long on the stock market as a place to possibly invest surpluses. While there's enough money involved to buy Social Security its own seat on the exchange, paying commission to no one, there have been too many bug-a-boos about the volatility of the stock market. Negative comments even though in its darkest day, the days of the Great Depression, the New York Stock Exchange still managed a minimum three percent return on investment.

That fact alone should have silenced the critics, particularly the Democrats, who would rather keep every taxpayer in the country more than 100 percent in the hole as a result of their having substituted promissory obligations, markers, to the trust fund to replace money they supposedly borrowed and spent elsewhere. The Pay-It-Again, Sam scam.

But I would like to take solutions one step further by asking why we should even think of investing in the stock market at all. Why should Social Security invest in stock that somebody else already owns? That's what "stock exchange" means, you know. It doesn't help the company unless it increases the value of any stock the company is hanging onto or makes their stockholders happier. Unless the company puts new stock or some of their holdings on the market it is not a loan to the company.

What's to keep Social Security from making direct loans to corporations and companies or even to foreign nations? It would certainly be a much more direct stimulus to the economy. Companies could use the funds for new tooling, product development, hiring and higher wages, and all sorts of things beneficial to consumers. We could even develop an index of loan offerings based on factors like the number of employees in a company. An index computers could handle. It would be a lot like those "pre-approved" credit card loan offers you get in the mail and over the phone during your evening meal.

Most importantly, the trust would be paid real annual interest, a fair return on the money loaned. It would not be more "special obligation" bonds handed out like candy from Santa Claus, no money involved and putting us deeper in debt.

Jack Denton, one of the members of the Taxpayer's Union for Financial Freedom (www.get-tuff.com) points out another advantage. In the unlikely event of a company defaulting on American citizens, we would at least be left with assets to sell. It's not similar to the way your current surplus payroll taxes, your retirement and old age health money is going down the drain today at the rate of about $300 million a day. Almost $500 million a day when you consider the other entitlement surpluses the government is stealing. All under the Pay-It-Again, Sam scam.

We've left things in the hands of an inept and dishonest government far too long haven't we? Why should we let them stall further? So they can pretend to be working hard to develop solutions to invest part of the pie? Especially in hand-me-down games patterned after their own Thrift Savings Plan. A privatized method of investing in the Standard & Poors Index through Barclay Bank of Great Britain.

From the get-go that scheme is a paperwork disaster for companies in the private sector who would be required to report each employee separately and allow emplyee switching between options at will. And it's not the way the big pension houses work anyway.

It's time to get realistic and start managing our own money.