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Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

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Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#381

Post by mywittyname »

pwthornton wrote: post #28
cjkalsdf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the stock market will be around when you are old enough to need your 401k? I max my contributions but I have no faith they won't be wiped out in some future crash.

You buy shares in the stock market, not dollars, so a crash shouldn't hamper your ability to retire, unless you want to retire during the crash itself (although diversity of assets would help with this). The stock market recovered years ago from the Great Depression and is doing really well again.

I actually worry about a large-scale "privatization" of the stock market in the distant future. I believe that the concentration of wealth will get so bad that small groups of people will be able to create private equity firms capable taking all the largest companies private.

We are already to the point where there's so much private equity that startups don't need IPOs. So it's entirely possible that the next Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft will never be exchanged on open markets.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#382

Post by portent »

mywittyname wrote: post #352
jimmyk wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Fed can buy the bonds and hold them in perpetuity. And what cash will they give to the SSA in exchange for those bonds? Where will that come from?

> Where will that come from? The same place cash comes from now when the Fed buys t-bonds in order to manipulate the interest rate: nowhere. The Federal Reserve has the authority to create money to redeem any US government security.

I don't think that is right.

The federal reserve can create new US dollars, and it can buy US Treasuries - but this is not the same as redeeming them. The fed becomes just another bondholder that needs paying by the treasury dept. The money goes to the person who previously held the bond as payment for the bond.

Also there is about $20 trillion outstanding public debt, and only $3.3 trillion in the whole money supply, so there is a big gap in money creation needed to pay off the debt. Would tank the currency and kill the economy (think hyperinflation).

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m...

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#383

Post by School-Cotton »

kdamken wrote: post #315
School-Cotton wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they cancel some welfare program (like free lunch for poor school kids), do you want your money back that you paid into the program while it existed? What sense does this make?

Not the best comparison. Besides being a requirement, you pay into social security based on the assumption that you'll get benefits when you're older. If you paid for 20 years and then the program went bust and you didn't receive anything, I think you'd rightly feel ripped off.

> you pay into social security based on the assumption that you'll get benefits when you're older.

No. If you think this is how social security works then you have been tricked.

Social Security is a welfare program for old people.

A better analogy is if you paid for free lunches for kids, then you have a kid and also become poor, but they cancel the program, you'd feel ripped off.

The reason it doesn't intuitively feel the same way (even though it is) is because middle class people have a much higher chance of ever becoming old than ever becoming poor.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#384

Post by plandis »

callinyouin wrote: post #4

I'm not planning on Social Security being around by the time I'm old enough to tap into it, and I'm also not planning on having any kids to bail me out when I go senile, so yeah I'm putting a lot into my 401k. I think a lot of people my age (turning 30 next week) are feeling the same way, so I wonder if it's younger workers driving this trend.

Yeah I'm doing the exact same thing. Max out 401k / IRA every year + additional savings.

I'm assuming that SS wont be around but if it is, great! Unfortunately, I have a feeling Republicans are really going to fuck people my age (mid 20's) over with some sort of slow phase-out so I'm also hedging my bet.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#385

Post by rhino369 »

kmicklas wrote: post #347
adventured wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Empire collapse (has happened with every single empire in history - what makes the U.S. exempt?) The US isn't anything like traditional historical empires for one. It hasn't built its prosperity on invading other nations to annex them and plunder their national wealth, which is traditionally how empires temporarily sustain themselves. The US built its immense wealth today (just under half of all private wealth on e…

> It hasn't built its prosperity on invading other nations to annex them and plunder their national wealth, which is traditionally how empires temporarily sustain themselves. That is exactly how it has built its wealth, what?

The US didn't plunder their wealth. It extinguished / concentrated the previous civilizations and created a new civilization in it's place.

Even if the US experienced severe economic, military, and social decline, Illinois isn't going to turn back into the Illiwek Confederation. Those people don't exist anymore.

To put it more simply, America isn't a patchwork of nations and nationalities. Empire's are several nations aggregated into one political union.

If America were in decline, we might lose parts of the southwest to Mexico (due mostly to heavy immigration, not because we stole the land from them), maybe Hawaii, and the colonial territories (Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.).

In a total collapse (post apocalyptic), new nationalities would form, but that takes a long time.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#386

Post by mywittyname »

greedo wrote: post #310
mywittyname wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're saying that using Medicaid is equivalent to accumulating debt with the Federal government. Medicaid is health insurance. It's true that Medicaid will seek reimbursement for procedures that should not have been covered, but that's not different much different than what happens when a private insurance company refuses to pay a benefit. The hospital is free to pursue the person directly for the b…

If you use Medicaid, you're expected to first deplete almost all of your financial resources to pay. It's not unusual to even have your home become an asset that will be eventually taken by the government.

I'm actually quite aware of this (my partner used to do nursing home placements). But if you're going into a nursing home, the implication is that you will never need those assets again. While I don't agree with this process, it's difficult to argue it is without merit. I suppose if survivors wanted to inherit those assets, they could take on the care of their elderly family members.

It's also worth noting that, in most of the US, the alternative to medicaid was/is filial support laws, in which the nursing home could take the assets of the children of the patients in their care.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#387

Post by TheCoelacanth »

fooey wrote: post #378
callinyouin wrote: post #4

I'm not planning on Social Security being around by the time I'm old enough to tap into it, and I'm also not planning on having any kids to bail me out when I go senile, so yeah I'm putting a lot into my 401k. I think a lot of people my age (turning 30 next week) are feeling the same way, so I wonder if it's younger workers driving this trend.

I'm 36 and in ~17 years of being a developer professionally, I've yet to find employment at a single company that offers any kind of retirement plan at all. I max out my IRA each year, but my retirement plan is to basically work until I can't, then hop on an iceberg. IMHO, between Americans being drastically underprepared for retirement and mass job automation, the country is on the cusp of a devastatingly colossal s…

What kind of developer job doesn't have a 401k? Even the minimum wage job I had my first summer out of high school had one.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#388

Post by anigbrowl »

DoodleBuggy wrote: post #47
callinyouin wrote: post #4

I'm not planning on Social Security being around by the time I'm old enough to tap into it, and I'm also not planning on having any kids to bail me out when I go senile, so yeah I'm putting a lot into my 401k. I think a lot of people my age (turning 30 next week) are feeling the same way, so I wonder if it's younger workers driving this trend.

> "I'm not planning on Social Security being around by the time I'm old enough to tap into it" You need to change that attitude or your complacency will allow politicians to take it from you. The fact is you pay ~16% of your paycheck into social security and medicare, it is designed to be like a pension. It is not an entitlement, it's your money.

It is an entitlement, because it's your money. You have legal title to it; that's what 'entitlement' means.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#389

Post by patmcguire »

mac01021 wrote: post #316
pc86 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact is you pay ~16% of your paycheck into social security and medicare, it is designed to be like a pension. It is not an entitlement, it's your money. Except the facts don't match up with this. It is not designed to be like a pension. It is the workers of today paying for the retirees of today, on the assumption that when you retire there will be workers to pay for you. There is no guarantee, and there is no…

> It is the workers of today paying for the retirees of today, on the assumption that when you retire there will be workers to pay for you. Isn't that how pensions have traditionally worked too?

Yes, although I think the initial lag for pensions to start paying out is longer. First SS retiree payed in for only three years. https://www.ssa.gov/history/imf.html

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#390

Post by hx87 »

hsitz wrote: post #349
baddox wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, I will argue that the commenter's attitude is MORE harmful. He or she is placing the responsibility on the individual, when this clearly is something where the individual has no authority. The notion that if you just vote REALLY HARD the people in power will treat you well, and that if you're not treated well you must not have voted hard enough, only helps maintain the status quo.

Haven't you ever heard that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"? There's a reason the Christian right has a political voice far out of proportion to their actual numbers: they're active and loud. No, of course the answer isn't to "vote really hard", but that phrasing is simply rhetoric built to disparage the poster you're responding to. Everyone has only one vote. But the people who make noise, the people who are pol…

So, shout but prepare not to be heard? That meshes pretty well with OP's comment.
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