Q    Mr. President, I'm concerned about the furor lately that's been -- it’s similar to what’s happened in the past but it’s reemerging, mostly from the Republican Party, but some Democrats -- that Social Security needs to be privatized because it’s losing money, and we're all going to -- and it’s going to go broke, and that sort of thing.  How would you comment on that?

THE PRESIDENT:  I have been adamant（固执的，坚强的） in saying that Social Security should not be privatized and it will not be privatized as long as I'm President.  (Applause.)  And here’s the reason.  I was opposed to it before the financial crisis.  And what I said was the purpose of Social Security is to have that floor, that solid -- rock-solid security, so that no matter what else happens you’ve always got some income to support you in your retirement. And I've got no problem with people investing in their 401(k)s, and we want to encourage people to invest in private savings accounts.  But Social Security has to be separate from that.

Now, imagine if Social Security, if a portion of that had been in the stock market back in 2006 and 2007.  I mean, you saw what happened with your 401(k)s -- you lost 20, 30, 40 percent of it.  Now, we've recovered -- in part because of the policies that we put into place to stabilize the situation, the stock market has recovered 60-70 percent of its value from its peak.  But if you were really in need last year or the year before, and suddenly you see your assets（资产，财产） drop by 40 percent, and that's all you're relying on, it would have been a disaster.

So here’s the thing.  Social Security is not in crisis.  What is happening is, is that the population is getting older, which means we've got more retirees（退休人员） per worker than we used to.  We're going to have to make some modest adjustments in order to strengthen it.  There are some fairly modest changes that could be made without resorting to any newfangled（新奇的，最新式的） schemes that would continue Social Security for another 75 years, where everybody would get the benefits that they deserve.  And what we've done is we've created a fiscal commission of Democrats and Republicans to come up with（提出，赶上） what would be the best combination to help stabilize Social Security for not just this generation, but the next generation.

I'm absolutely convinced it can be done.  And as I said, I want to encourage people to save more on their own, but I don't want them taking money out of Social Security so that people are putting that into the stock market.  There are other ways of doing this.

For example, it turns out that if you set up a system with your employer where the employer automatically deducts（扣除，演绎） some of your paycheck and puts it into your 401(k) account, unless you say you don't want it done, it turns out people save more just naturally.  I mean, it’s just kind of a psychological thing.  If they take it out of your paycheck, and they automatically take it out, unless you affirmatively say, don't take it out, you’ll save more than if they ask you, do you want to save, and then you say, nah, I’m going to keep the money.  And then you save less.

So that's just a small change.  It’s voluntary, but that in and of itself could end up boosting savings rates significantly. So there are a bunch of ways that we can do -- make sure that retirement is more secure.  But we’ve got to make sure that Social Security is there not just for this generation but for the next one.  Okay?

All right, gentleman’s turn.  And by the way, I know that some folks may be hot, and if they are, you guys can always move into the shade.