here:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/3/145442/8316#readmore

From Obama's website:

Obama does support adding on savings accounts for the lower income groups to encourage national retirement savings by those that need it most

i.e. partial privatization.

Now, his economic adviser's plan on his Academic website:

Jeffrey Liebman, who again, is an economic adviser to Obama.

Thus an important goal for retirement policy should be to encourage all workers to accumulate sufficient individual savings so that the combination of Social Security and private nest egg allows them to maintain their standard of living during retirement. Proposals to introduce personal retirement accounts as part of Social Security can be seen as an attempt to deal with this second challenge

Second, we agreed to add enough new revenue to maintain currently promised retirement income levels, but we devoted all of the new revenue to personal retirement accounts equal to 3 percent of payroll for every worker

Fourth, we agreed to have personal retirement accounts in the plan, but the accounts were heavily regulated. So, in particular, they would be mandatory and when you get to retirement, you would be required to take out all your money in the form of an annuity a payment that lasts as long as you live. This ensures that people cannot squander all of their savings in the first few years of retirement.

Sure looks like partial privatization of social security to me.

Liebman is arguing for an "add on" private retirement count, which would be in addition to Social Security. This is what Bill Clinton proposed as well. It is not privatization. No current funds dedicated to Social Security would go to the new accounts.

This is very different from the "carve out" program of partial privatization that the Republicans have pushed. You can find discussion of how these are differ in a billion places on the web.

Anyway, Obama's not proposing this. This was an idea that Liebman worked up a few years ago.iY

She also has private retirement accounts but calls them 401ks.

That's also privatization in a hybrid.

On her plan she is doing a funds matching, like company 401ks Private accounts.

It gets worse because she mentions a matching $500 dollars or $1000 but it's nebulous if that is a 1 time matching fund or yearly.

Ya know, having individuals run their own investments, like an IRA or a 401k is not guaranteed retirement.

This looks just as bad as Obama.

This is a really interesting, if not exactly encouraging, post. What's the profile for HRC's economic team? Does either candidate have the edge (on matters economic) from the progressive perspective?

Matching Private Savings with Federal Dollars (1999), not specific to these exact proposals, gives a little more insight into the idea of private savings accounts.

Their conclusion:

A lingering question is whether a 401(k)-type plan design is sensible when the target population consists of low- and very low income workers, as is the case with the two Social Security-based proposals. Incentives provided by matching contributions will be successful only if workers can afford to take advantage of them, and many low- and very low income workers cannot or do not. Perhaps federal resources would be better spent on direct subsidies for the poor in retirement than on a complicated incentive program that may produce only a marginal increase in savings. It might also be better to target savings incentives to those who can afford to save and are motivated to respond. With these considerations in mind, a federal 401(k) approach has some merit, but creating a stand-alone federal program does not. One alternative to consider is subsidizing contributions into IRAs and other 401(k)-type plans while providing very similar rules for taxing contributions and benefits. This would preserve the savings incentives that are the essence of these proposals while reducing their complexity and cost

Obama has put into place the Jason Furman, a Robert Rubin clone and involved with the Hamilton project as his head economic adviser.

What does this mean? Well, more bad trade deals and not a hell of a lot for working America.

To give a real life example, here is his paper on how Wal-mart, the notorious squeezer of other retailers, multiple class action lawsuits against it for unpaid wages and sex discrimination and our portal to China increasing their exports to the US...

he thinks all of that is just fine and daddy.

I am woefully unimpressed by Obama’s $120 billion economic stimulus plan. It’s primarily tax cuts, the Republican way.I would note that his policy is not surprising given that Obama's economic advisers are all wingers.

In an ideal world, complete cooperation between different countries creates roads paved with gold, leading to a global utopia. But, historically, and in the real world, human nature and nationalism seem to return individual country's to a goal of self interest and national security. Rogue leaders and unexpected events, such as Putin and Georgia ... Iran, atomic bombs, terrorists and Israel ... Chavez's ambitions ... Al Quada ... Chinese expansion ... etc., always seem to upset the international apple cart of idealists. In addition, we should not take for granted our 200+ year experiment of freedom and capitalism, and be so willing to gamble it away for a socialistic notion which stifles the individual innovation and initiative which made this country great ... and a standard of living which makes everyone around the world want to live here! And, since many have decided to also make this a partisan political discourse, by assuring us that Obama, the messiah, has all the answers, allow me to respond to that as well. Obama has no experience, or credentials. When given the chance in the senate, Obama did nothing except to show up and vote present 160 times. Despite his flowery speeches, his track record reveals a focus on personal ambition, associations with anti-American racists and terrorists, massive flip flopping, questionable loyalty to political positions and long time friends, a desire for socialism, and forced redistribution of America's wealth. He casually promises everyone a chicken in every pot, even if it is the chicken that lays America's golden eggs. Economics 101 ... Every farmer knows that even if you get real hungry, you never eat the seed crop. One of the reasons McCain keeps going back to the issue of character is because although Obama makes great speeches, if his character and integrity are questionable, it doesn't matter how good his plans sound. Policies and promises from an ambitious politician who can't be trusted, are equivalent to building a utopian sky scrapper on a rotten foundation.
P.S. Today Obama talked about more jobs, something McCain has been insisting on since day one ... except Obama wants to raise taxes to the very people who provide jobs, while McCain wants to cut taxes to businesses as a way to promote jobs

Well, it didn't work out so well under Bush. Regardless of whether or not it happens to go into effect under Obama, the Social Security system is in need of a massive overhaul - we are not going to be able to afford all the baby boomers when they start drawing their SS. Social Security was something on the order of about 15 - 20 years from overdrawing, which is a long ball estimate, and Medicare and Medicaid were ten years or less from over extension. Even if we manage to privatize Social Security or mandate that all funds withdrawn from pay will be withdrawn and held in an savings only account for only that person, there is still a massive gap that is going to have to be made up at one point or another. Even if the Bush plan had succeeded, and SS payments had gone into a government held 401k, it still would have tanked during the stock market slump. Beyond just a privately held savings account that you can't touch until age 65, there isn't a whole lot we can really do with Social Security. We may have to just pitch the whole thing.