I have trouble understanding the current furor over “private” retirement accounts. We already have three flavors of them that receive favorable tax treatment: IRAs, Roth IRAs, and 401(k) plans. All three are voluntary, and all three offer all the benefits President Bush claims a “privatized” Social Security would offer. So why aren’t we talking about ways to get more people to invest in the private, tax-favored retirement plans we already have while making demographic adjustments to our current Social Security system to bring it in line with current and (projected) future population shifts? This would be far more sensible — and much simpler — than trying to gut Social Security.