If a 1% rate of return is considered realistic, then no one would ever invest. Stocks as a whole have exceeded 6% over the past 40 years.
“If a 1% rate of return is considered realistic, then no one would ever invest. Stocks as a whole have exceeded 6% over the past 40 years.”
Keep in mind that over that time, there were over $14 Trillion in government expenditures that were borrowed.
So the only way we can expect anything like that is if we repudiate the debt, including future benefits.
Since we can’t say we’ll do that, the only way you get the type of returns of which you speak is when we inflate away our debts - in which case 6% will still be nothing in the face of sustained double digit inflation.
The past 30 or so years has been an aberration in the growth of benefits, benefit expectations, and government.
I think for planning purposes, the best assumptions are closer to mine than yours, but everyone is free to make their own assumptions up, just like you and I did.