Economist Says the American Retirement System Has Failed(mandatory retirement savings)

PRI Public Radio International ^ | 01 August, 2012 | The Takeaway Morning News Program

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The 401(k) model “expects individuals without investment expertise to reap the same results as professional investors or money managers,”

Right. Fidelity, Schwab, Morgan Stanley, et al don't have any financial expertise to offer their customers. And your company investment plans don't have financial advisors and counselors come visit regularly to discuss your financial plans.

That sentence alone gives away the author...you are in incompetent boob who cannot manage your own life. Better let the elite intelligentsia who graduated from Yale and Harvard and now work for government manage that part of your life for you. The same boobs who have run up $16 TRILLION of acknowledged debt and $222 TRILLION of off-balance sheet debt.

[EVO X]

You can save your ass off, but with savings accounts and CD’s paying 0.10 % on your money it aint going to be enough.

Hopefully it is not going to be like that forever. For someone that is young and in a low tax bracket, they should be putting everthing they can into a Roth IRA..

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Don’t forget that 0.1% is the nominal return. The real return (accounting for inflation) is NEGATIVE 3%/year. In a short 23 years, HALF of your savings are wiped out. At 5%/year, it takes only 14 years and, after another 14 years, you are left with 1/4 of your initial stake.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Read between the lines of the above article and you will see someone who wants to take away the assets of those who do have a decent 401/IRA and split them up among everyone. Private retirement accounts are the last big pot of money .gov hasn't gotten it's hands on.

My take is slightly different. There's two parts to retirement savings--those that are already accumulated, and those that will be saved going forward.

The government can "tap" those through increasingly onerous restrictions and penalties (early distributions, late distributions, overly large distributions, insufficient distributions, increased estate taxes, etc).

I think that Teresa's aiming at the second part--future contributions. She will force them to be made, and you can bet that they will be invested in something "safe", i.e., US Treasury Bonds. In other words, a new pension income stream will be created, and used to fund government programs.

[John O]

If you had invested that same $2000 in a simple savings account, or in very safe bonds, you would STILL have greatly outperformed social security. IF there was no tax on the earnings.

Leave people’s money in their own hands and let them determine the level of risk they want to take.

[Son House]

You all just nail it, I’ll have to read again later, but am sure grateful to be availed to someone besides a Democrat Economist, too bad a great many Americans won’t have this truth and guidance, and some that could, prefer the security of willful ignorance.

[William Tell]

sphinx said: "Put half of each person’s SS taxes in a personal retirement account ..."

Let's not be like the liberals and pretend that we can have our cake and eat it too.

I believe we have recently crossed-over to the point that one-hundred percent of SS taxes are distributed as benefits to our present retirees. The only way to put the sum you mention into an individual account would be to raise SS taxes by 50%.

Young people would be well advised not to fall for such a trick. All these programs start out well-meaning enough, but government controls ensure failure.

So-called "safety nets" encourage people to behave in ways that they would never imagine if not for the net. Youngsters need to see irresponsible elderly people suffering for their mistaken ways. Only when there are personal consequences for personal misbehavior will people pay attention.

[sphinx]

I am not willing to let the dems play poison the well politics and foreclose constructive structural reform. The transition to a fully funded system would have been easier when SS was still running a surplus, but there would have still been a long-term challlenge of amortizing the unfunded liability. And now the hill has gotten steeper. But a fully funded system is still the way to go.

The alternative is to borrow ever more simply to prop up a bankrupt system that pays a pitifully low — and for many participants, a negative— rate of return.

I do not subscribe to the view that Social Security is now too bankrupt to fix, so we must plunge blindly along shovelling good money after bad.

[Spirit of Liberty]

For later reading.

[William Tell]

sphinx said: "But a fully funded system is still the way to go."

I think the two of us have a fundamental difference of opinion regarding the role that government should play in people's retirment planning.

What is it that you believe justifies ANY role for government? What principle do you use to limit that role?

Isn't it the case that any government role is enforced through use of coercion and that such coercion always reflects that the government is forcing someone to do something that they would not willingly do?

[cycjec]

some years ago a commenter at an excellent blog, not my own
(I have none) remarked: Real savings requires avoidance of
1. taxes 2. inflation 3. risk. Think about this before
you blame the individual, although there’s much to be
critical about there.