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:

It should basically keep up with inflation and other costs of living, so something like ~5% real returns with almost no volatility.

When is it going to sink in that it's IMPOSSIBLE to do that with large sums of money over the long term without some serious book-cooking.
 
Quote from nitro:

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1929119,00.html

Is it time to go back to pensions?

I am heartbroken. I see more old people, particularly older women, begging on busy streets. These are not scammers. I understand that the logic doesn't follow between what I see on streets and the 401k situation, but by gawd man, the population is aging rapido and if something is not done, our parents are going to be on the street! I am ashamed to live in the richest nation in the world that has allowed it's elderly to be treated like this.

The 401k system doesn't work, at least not without supplement. It is probably too late for the generation that are now becoming seniors, but must it be so forever?


Remember those pictures of the Great Depression where the soup lines were primarily older men? It's here again. And we were told it was unlikely to happen again because of the supposed
safeguards in place. Fuckin' liars and thieves have ruined the USA. They can go straight to hell.
 
people losing their homes and begging on the streets? there is nothing new under the sun. in fact, hundreds of years ago, President Thomas Jefferson suspected this would happen:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -Thomas Jefferson

the root of all our economic woes is given in the above statement by Jefferson.
 
Wait until the pensions that are left and rolled over to the individuals start getting creamed also. Most companies with remaining pension plans are rolling them into self directed plans where they are able to drop the pension obligation from their annual budgets. All the people that left their money with the mutual fund industry and ignored it during our last downturns are now going to throw their formerly guarenteed pension money into the same funds. My wife has her 403b in TIAA-CREF and I left it to her to take care of, not that I would have done better, and she is still under water 6% from her all time high. That high was back in June of '07. TIAA-CREF is supposed to be one of the good ones, but couldn't avoid the butt slamming. January 1 of next year she will have her pension money rolled into the same funds. Yippee!
 
Quote from Random.Capital:

When is it going to sink in that it's IMPOSSIBLE to do that with large sums of money over the long term without some serious book-cooking.

Or else taking on some risk. The idea is to take on only a small risk; one that can be buffered by sovereign income. On average that approach should do well. I very much like the Norwegian model.

The problems in US pension funds have arisen because of poorly regulated capitalism spurred on be greed and mismanagement. This should not be an indictment of the basic principles, as the number of pension funds that have remained sound is evidence of that.
 
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