What a f-ing stupid proposal. I’ve seen this pop up over the last few weeks and wondered why McCain wasn’t hitting them on it.
Because many people are too afraid of the stock market right now to think straight. I hear people crying all over the place about their “loss” in their 401k. They are even saying they are going to quit contributing.
I tell them are you crazy? Now is the time to buy. The time to liquidate was last year. My 401k today is still up 37% over where it was when Bush took office. In November 2007, I liquidated half of my portfolio and transferred the funds to the treasury fund of my 401k. Soon I will be reinvesting some of those funds each month for about a year.
I have been buying selected stocks for my IRA and investment portfolio, since July 29, 2008. My best investment todate is a Bank stock which is up 25% even though the market as a whole is down.
The schools need to teach investment principles and help people to understand the market functions and business cycle, and many have no exposure what so ever to this before graduation.
Any one with 10 years to retirement should still be investing in several funds. Any one planning on retiring in 5 years, should have put some of their money in a conservative fund (money market or treasury fund) when the market peaked, to avoid taking money from a fund during a down market.
And I remind them that it is not a real loss until you sell.
And eliminating the 401k is really stupid, I agree.