AARP is back in the investing game and with a plan that doesn’t sound half bad. AARP Financial, a unit of AARP Services, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of AARP proper, is now offering a retirement investment product again. Under the novel program, investors will choose between three portfolios designed to have three different risk profiles. Since the portfolios will themselves consist of a mix of asset classes, the system will spare participants the trouble of assembling their own balanced portfolio. AARP is marketing a pre-packaged version of the kind of portfolio every investor strives to assemble on his own.

Investment isn’t entirely new territory for AARP; it used to co-market Scudder mutual funds, but took a public relations hit when the funds underperformed. The new product is designed to be much simpler. Initial investments could be less than $1,000.

In other words, AARP sensed a market need for a relatively simple investment vehicle and invented one. That entrepreneurial spirit might raise some eyebrows. After all, AARP, allegedly lobbying on behalf of senior citizens, has been leading the charge against any Social Security reform that would center on personal accounts. One caveat the organization offered, in a Q&A on its Web site, is that investment options would be limited under most privatization proposals. Yet AARP itself now believes that relatively limited offerings can be appealing even in a marketplace that offers much more choice. AARP also warned that “administrative and management costs, much higher for individual investment ac counts than for Social Security, would also reduce your balances.” Yet AARP itself purports to have found a way to reduce those costs dramatically.

The vice president for investment services at AARP Financial, Nancy Smith, told us that AARP doesn’t see any contradiction between its ongoing interest in marketing investments and its opposition to Social Security personal accounts because it has always advocated personal investing as a supplement to traditional Social Security. Perhaps. But if AARP’s new program proves successful, people will start wondering if that position makes much sense. AARP itself will have rebutted some of the charges it levels against Social Security reformers. And younger Americans – those too young to be part of AARP – may start to ask whether, if investing in the stock market is a good idea for retirees, it may not be a good idea for their Social Security, too.