Why It's Time to Retire the 401(k)

Should the system enforce pensions again?

  • Yes. I see old people begging on the street.

    Votes: 10 37.0%

  • No. Companies cannot afford it.

    Votes: 12 44.4%

  • I don't know.

    Votes: 2 7.4%

  • I don't care.

    Votes: 3 11.1%
  • Total voters
    27
Quote from nitro:

1) If it were up to me, I would raise taxes so that I could pay for universal health care. I would do this with a consumption tax.

2) As for saving for retirement, I would do a split system where companies would be forced to have pensions plans instead of employe matching of 401ks, and I would allow 20% of the rest of the check that gets taken out to be used for investing. Sort of the way older people are advised to invest in the markets, 80:20 bonds, stock, 80% pension, 20% 401K.

3) I don't want to curb immigration. This is the hardest question of all because we are all immigrants at one time. I just wish there was some way to integrate these people into American society, without being the Borg and assimilate them and destroy their culture. Mexicans are the hardest working people I have ever met in my life. If "they" had an education and worked half as hard, they would rule the world in no time.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." - Mathew 5:5
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Screw that.

We need to cut the federal government by 90% and means test social security and medicare/medicaid.

Voting should also be a privilege, not a right. If you're not putting your fair share into the system you sure as hell shouldn't have an equal say in it.
 
Retirement is a Fiction.

Inasmuch it has worked in the past - don't forget, it took place under unusual circumstances. A society based on: a 60+ year old post WWII credit bubble, cheap energy and low EROEI, abundant younger workers to feed the pension/401K, etc, and a smaller (cpmpared to today) population of senior recipients.

It was a Ponzi scheme backed by many other factors. There is no long term reliable store of value. No such thing.

I would even say that no retirement system can outlast 3 generations without a corresponding exponential growth in an economy and population. And that's impossible. Nothing grows exponentially forever.
 
Quote from Misthos:

Retirement is a Fiction.

Inasmuch it has worked in the past - don't forget, it took place under unusual circumstances. A society based on: a 60+ year old post WWII credit bubble, cheap energy and low EROEI, abundant younger workers to feed the pension/401K, etc, and a smaller (cpmpared to today) population of senior recipients.

It was a Ponzi scheme backed by many other factors. There is no long term reliable store of value. No such thing.

I would even say that no retirement system can outlast 3 generations without a corresponding exponential growth in an economy and population. And that's impossible. Nothing grows exponentially forever.
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Probably correct.

Yet another problem.... older workers not retiring and therefore not vacating jobs for younger ones to move up... and as the next youngest generation doesn't get the chance to move up, they don't vacate places for even younger workers to get an entry job.

This is such a mess, the mind boggles.
 
Right on. One scheme after another.None really viable. What's next? Ross Perot was right. The devil really IS in the details.
 
... some of my favorite quotes are from John Adams.

"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people."

There are people in the US, who, lacking financial knowledge and discipline, are of a great enough number as to bring about the total collapse of our economic system.
Add that number to the millions of citizens insane enough to vote for the candidate who promises them free money from the public trough, and we soon discover the damage done to our country means the whole democratic experiment is virtually over.


"Our Constitution was made only for a moral people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
 
Quote from heypa:

Right on. One scheme after another.None really viable. What's next? Ross Perot was right. The devil really IS in the details.
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I think that a hybrid system of company sponsored pension + 401k is close, but I am going to retract what I said earlier.

This system could be based on weighting dependent on age. So if you are younger, you get to be 20:80, pension:401k. As you get older, it should invert, pension:401k, 80:20. This means you are taking the greatest risk when you are young, but still have something being put away, and then as you get older, if you screwed up, you can still have something decent if you work hard from 50 to 70 years old, and still get some upside if things go well in riskier 401k investments.

The problem with pensions is that you can't take them with you AFAIK the way you can 401k from corporation to corporation, since companies love to push out high payed workers and replace them with cheaper younger workers. This is the real disaster, and imo, it is the pressures put on older workers that causes the problem, i.e., kids, education costs, healthcare costs, hours worked balanced between family and work, etc.

Hence, solve those core issues on a national level, and the pressure of older workers to continue to need to earn more eases, and guess what, now they can stay competitive longer against younger rivals.
 
Quote from IanMacQuaide:

... some of my favorite quotes are from John Adams.

"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people."

There are people in the US, who, lacking financial knowledge and discipline, are of a great enough number as to bring about the total collapse of our economic system.
Add that number to the millions of citizens insane enough to vote for the candidate who promises them free money from the public trough, and we soon discover the damage done to our country means the whole democratic experiment is virtually over.


"Our Constitution was made only for a moral people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
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Dang... that's a mouthful.. :(

And short of a Second Revolutionary War, I feel the "democratic experiment" which has been the USA.... IS over. :mad:
 
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