http://www.ncpa.org/pi/congress/pd090999a.html

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. You don't need to look overseas to see how this is a bad idea: look in your own backyard. The trend of the last 20 years of employers changing from Defined Benefit (i.e., Pension) plans to Defined Contribution (i.e., 401(k)s) plans has started to cool off in the last 5 years because people are finally starting to realize the problem: when you change the plan from a guaranteed benefit to one that's employee-controlled, and you base that new plan on investment in stocks, you inevitably increase the risk of employees losing everything and retiring with nothing. Just ask former Enron employees if they're glad they had the "ownership" over their accounts, enabling them to invest it all in Enron.

Sure, many will say, that's their own fault, too bad. But what about if another Stock Market crash occurs, eliminating the nest eggs of even those who had a balanced, diversified portfolio? You'd have millions of retirees with no social security to fall back on, and we'd be back to the elderly eating cat food for dinner.

There needs to be: (a) some recognition of the costs that this will impose and (b) some safety net for retirees in the event of a crash. Otherwise, you're screwing a whole lot of people in the name of "ownership."