The most dangerous financial shift that has occurred in the United States in the past thirty years has been the shift from the pension system to one dominated by 401(k)’s.
You’re going to get bad results when you expect the average guy on the street to (1) save appropriately, and (2) select the appropriate investments so that he can build long-term wealth for decades on end.
According to CNN: http://www.money.cnn.com/2014/02/13/retirement/401k-balances/ , the average 401(k) account for someone approaching his or her 65th birthday is $165,200. Even if you reach the conclusion that people should bear the personal responsibility to prepare for their own retirements, you still have to acknowledge that the society-wide result is going to carry a lot of unpleasant effects in terms of people unprepared to take care of themselves in their later years (at this point, it would become a political question of whether you’d find … Read the rest of this article!
