Reddit mentions of Common Stocks as Long Term Investments

>SS invests its money by buying US treasury bonds, that is the only investment it can own, by law. Those bonds are widely considered the safest investment available. The alternative is holding cash, which has its value eroded by inflation and nets 0 return.

It's strange to speak of misinformation, when you yourself manage to misinform. There's a lot more in the world than cash and treasuries.

Go to /r/personalfinance ans see what people say about retirement. Nobody will say anything about treasuries. The answer is always index funds, index funds and when you are old enough bond index funds.

The asset class of bonds safely provides money at a specific date, but guarantees you will get sub-par return on your money for a prolonged period of time. If you want to set up a trust fund for a social program that lasts forever you need to invest in equity. This has been proven since 1922 and the economic explanation for it was provided by Lord Keynes himself, well before Social Security was created.

A treasury is the bond of bonds - safer than most, but a particularly horrible way to save money. Though even that is debatable. A bond doesn't protect you from inflation, interest rate changes and other macro-economic risks that you do have to take into account if you plan for more than 30 years ahead, but that's a problem for the beneficents of Social Security, not for the program itself.