401 Ks helping create inequality

evince said:
Pretending poor people are not poor is fucking stupid
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So in your opinion, "poor people" wear all the best designer clothing, carry all the best electronic gadgetry, etc.?

And can you please try and answer without the insults and vulgarities?
 
you said it not me fuck face


you people here are pretending poor people are faking to get money from the gov
 
Taft2016 said:
I've only been here a short while but I'm noticing a pattern in your posting style. People present facts and you can not answer with anything other than ad hominem attacks.

You're not a very compelling forum member to interact with.


Does this forum have an ignore feature?
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why did you pretend you provided facts when it was just opinion you presented?


because you don't know how to discern a fact from your own bullshit
 
evince said:
that is another thing about 401ks.

You have to manage them.

I did mine and lost very little because I adjusted mine when I saw the crash coming.


Its doing pretty damned well.
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So then 401K’s are good for you because you’re a fucking genius? Other folks are morons and shouldn’t be involved in them fucking right-wing rackets that fuck over the middle class, huh?

I know many many people who were FORCED to use their 401 k money up in the crash.
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That’s because fucking Clinton deregulated the banking/housing market place and encouraged Fannie & Freddie to buy up ¾ of all of the sub-prime mortgages they could encourage the BIG banks to write and because the fucking Democrats in Congress kept insisting there was nothing going dangerously wrong with Fannie & Freddie when Republicans in Congress kept trying to fix the Democrat’s fuck up.

 
tekkychick said:
I have a pretty all-consuming job. It's a great job. It doesn't give me time to go off and get an advanced degree in finance, so I can learn how best to invest my money. It doesn't give me time to go out and interview CFOs at various companies so I can decide where to invest my money. I have other obligations than watching my stocks hour by hour.
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Very few 401ks allow you to choose individual stocks. No one is suggesting that you do so. But it is relatively easy to select the S&P 500 index fund that is a part of most 401ks. Over the long term you would not have lost money, even during the 2000-2012 time frame.

I accept a low return for what I've paid in social security because it's safe - or relatively safe.
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Yes, that is the safety net if your own savings (via 401ks/IRAs/individual brokerage accts, etc...) aren't there... either via you not saving or your investments not making as much as you thought they would.

I would love to have a company handling the pension fund - as long as it's a solid company that funds it appropriately - because I assume they can hire a heckuvalot better financial adviser than I can.
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Which is why so many pensions are in trouble right now???

The thought of 300 million americans trying to invest their social security money in private funds makes me shudder - a) it's highly inefficient - think of all the fees that would have to be paid and b) WE DON'T HAVE THE INFO.
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How would you pay more in fees? You could simply set up two options... S&P 500 index (which would run about .25% at most in fees) and a Treasury bond portfolio (again minimal fees). Let people choose which of the two they want or split it between them. Privatization does not mean you can do whatever you want with the money.

As for the info... it is readily available for anyone to read. You may not have the TIME, but the info is there.

Those of us not living on Wall St. don't have the info. We saw how well individual investments worked in the crash of 2001. And the crash of 2007/2008.
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Yes and pensions took the same hit.

My current company doesn't do pensions; so I have my 401K with the company they picked and have targeted the fund that's supposed to do best for someone retiring when I am due to retire. The rest is keeping my fingers crossed.
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Just an fyi... those target date funds blew up in 2008 too. Even the target 2010 funds were predominantly invested in the stock market.

I do have another 401K which is basically the rollover of past companies, and it is with a firm/adviser I've picked, rightly or wrongly.

We're all out here doing our best; but if you don't want to see old people starving on the streets, yes, you should look to the corps and govt to take some responsibility for the workers.
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Why do you and others continually pretend that people will be starving in the streets? That is pure nonsense.

Remember how much equity was wiped out in the housing crash in 2007/2008? the "average investor" had no clue about the games the companies were playing. We didn't have the info.

Sadly, looks like many companies played along with the hype - but they should have known better.
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Again, the pensions also took big hits.
 
Does this happen often on this forum?

Discussion after discussion appear to look like people trying to have a rational discussion with a shopping bag lady in the bus terminal.
 
cawacko said:
I'm with you. I respect TK but I'm not sure why she is groaning Winterborn's post. For instance I make choices now to spend money I know I shouldn't. I know I should be saving more and I don't because I want to do certain things and live a certain lifestyle right now. I can't be mad at someone who is choosing to save while I'm not and will be sitting in a better financial position than me down the road.
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I groaned him because of the tone of his post.

Of course everyone should save. But it's hard for people who are working low wage jobs, raising their kids, maybe taking care of sick parents, maybe working a second job or going to school or whatever to also be a financial expert.

But besides that - pensions, when done properly, are good things. They give the employee the comfort in retirement without the employee having to make those financial decisions. Now when pension plans are underfunded, of course there's a world of hurt. But done properly, they encourage company loyalty and give employees a sense of security.

401Ks are the companies saying "not our problem". And maybe it never should have been their problem. But it's nice when pensions work, isn't it?

Given that companies dumped pensions so fast, I am very surprised they didn't jump on health care reform - a single payer plan would have gotten companies out of the business of covering employees' health care. Companies were stupid not to dump that as well.

No one disagrees - people should save. I think some of us just miss the days of pensions.

For SF -Re expense of privatizing social security accounts. If every person in the uS has to pay someone to administer their soc sec account, that's a lot pricier overall than what we have not.
 
by the way - again, I recommend Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed" if you want to understand how hard it is to get by on low wage jobs, much less save.
 
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