Quote from ProfitTakgFool:
People are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They are withdrawing a portion of their earnings and dumping it in a 401k that is managed by a mutual fund, or a "professional" money manager. All this manager really does is buy the "market" in the form of a basket of stocks and then rides the market up and down without making any "management" decisions, and here you are blaming the Average Joe Investor for being a financial illiterate? Joe the Investor did exactly what he was supposed to do.
Now....now, the USG is going to steal what is left from this account -- which was mis-managed by the fund manager -- and hand it over to the SSA who will, in turn, buy bonds from a government that is going to default at some point in the future. Not only will Americans suffer from the stock market collapse but then they will suffer further from the default that is waiting out there. Americans will be broke when they retire, thanks to the USG. And, to boot, SSA is currently about $600B (don't have a source, it's just an estimate based on previous research) in the hole because Congress has repeatedly tapped this fund and replaced it with IOU's so they can build Project X. So now, the USG has a source to unload its debt on and another source for congress to steal from. How long will it be before this source of income has a deficit balance? Since when has the USG proven it is capable of managing its own finances, let alone the finances of others?
So here you are telling us what a wonderful job you have done providing for your own retirement but in the same breathe you are willingly surrendering the retirements of others? And you called me a <b>pompus jackass</b>?