Until the early 1980s, state and local governments had the right to opt out of Social Security and establish their own retirement systems for public employees. California, Nevada, Maine, Ohio and Colorado did so. So did three counties in Texas -- Galveston, Brazoria and Matagorda.

Taking the record of those three Texas counties -- with more than 5,000 employees in the private system -- here are some of the benefits:

• If an individual begins working at 25 years old and makes a $2,000 annual contribution for just 10 years, assuming an 8 percent interest rate, he will have $314,870 when he retires at age 65.

• If an employee works continuously for 40 years, depending on contributions, his portion of the pension fund could be more than $1 million.

• Members of the plan who retire after 20 years service will receive three to four times the monthly benefit they would have realized under Social Security.

Even the federal government has experimented with privatization. In 1984, Congress established the Thrift Savings Plan for government employees only. Its "C" Fund is administered entirely by Wells Fargo Funds. If an employee making $35,000 invests 10 percent of his pay each year, after 30 years he will have $1.2 million in his retirement fund.

Source: E. J. Myers (Houston businessman and author), "Social Security Privatization is Here," Wall Street Journal, January 16, 1997.