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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

#431

Post by TheCoelacanth »

hellogoodbyeeee wrote: post #31
squozzer wrote: post #5

Having a somewhat paranoid personality, I find myself wondering if auto-enroll and (especially) auto-escalation - which my job has - are designed with the employee's well-being in mind, or just a ploy to prop up the stock market?

Honestly, which do you think is most likely? 1) Your HR department is part of a nation-wide conspiracy to prop up stock market prices. 2) Your HR department is trying to help their employees be properly prepared for retirement.

The most likely is 3) Your HR department doesn't want their highly compensated employees' contributions to be rejected because the plan is top-heavy and is too cheap to make a safe harbor contribution to avoid that.

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

#432

Post by vkou »

chrisabrams wrote: post #399
tunap wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Probably" see better results? I don't have, nor will I fetch for, the number of people who are solely reliant on SS, but my father is one of them. And he said the exact same words as you to me when I was a sprout. Now, after some bad decisions, and health issues as a direct result of long arduous work, he is glad to have that net. Please, don't tell me about my duties as a son, I've supported two family members thro…

That's great that you've recognized your duty to your family, but what happens when your children retire? What process is in place to help them? Current projects barely keep things solvent for the retiring baby boomer generation. Robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't sustainable [1], but that's what social security is. Social security is not a guaranteed solution. If we have to raise taxes or collect additional taxes, that…

It's not your money to 'lose', and welfare programs do not rob Peter to pay Paul. They are just that - welfare programs. Wealth redistribution. There is nothing fundamental about them that makes them pyramid schemes.

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

#433

Post by baddox »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #363
baddox wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the alternative is tyranny of the minority? It doesn't reassure me that we give much more weight to a minority of voters just because they live in less densely populated areas. That's completely arbitrary.

It's not arbitrary, or about whose votes matter more or population density at all. It's because the United States is actually a union of what was, before the founding of the country as we know it, relatively sovereign states. By joining the union they were giving up much of that sovereignty. It was good for the union that more states joined, so the great compromise was to allow states who were fearful of being domina…

I know the reasons the electoral college was chosen. I still don't think it's necessarily a good idea, especially given the modern role of the President.

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

#434

Post by anigbrowl »

coredog64 wrote: post #239
tingletech wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why we need immigration policies that let us keep enough working age people in the country

Devil's advocate: High trust, homogeneous societies are more likely to have more comprehensive safety nets. As trust diminishes (i.e. partisan Red vs. Blue bickering) and the population fragments into large heterogeneous groups, what is there to keep the safety net in place? Why would a bunch of immigrants from Central America, doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do (and at very low wages) want to see a signi…

Why would a bunch of immigrants from Central America, doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do (and at very low wages) want to see a significant portion of their paychecks siphoned off to pay for the retirement of old white people they've never met

Because they'd like a similar system to take care of them in their old age, same as if they'd been born here? Why are you adding race into it as if the economic factor weren't the primary driver? If participants in the system have access to the benefits, in the future, why should they care about ethnic disparities between the current workforce and the cohort of retired people?

Your argument is that people of differing ethnic identity cam't have or perceive common or mutual economic interests.

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

#435

Post by anigbrowl »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #164
tingletech wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why we need immigration policies that let us keep enough working age people in the country

No, that's why we need people not to bet their retirement on a pyramid scheme, which is the point the parent of this whole conversation was making.

It's not a pyramid scheme, it's a countercyclical mechanism. The ratio of retirees to workers is a temporary condition and subject to a variety of remedies.

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

#436

Post by portent »

hx87 wrote: post #395
portent wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The fed becomes just another bondholder that needs paying by the treasury dept. The Fed does not get paid. It doesn't need to get paid, since the Federal Reserve by law has infinite liquidity.

all bondholders are paid - it doesn't matter who owns the bond.

https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-all-the-bonds-that-the...

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

#437

Post by crdoconnor »

RestlessMind wrote: post #223
monocasa wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most docile 60 year olds I know become positively vitriolic at the idea of even the age of benefit payout being changed by 5 years. I guess I'm afraid of a slow rollout. ie. everyone who's 40 and older gets normal social security, if you're ~35 now, you'll have to wait a few years more. It's exactly the kind of "we got ours" BS that the boomers are so known for.

Honestly, I don't think its such a bad idea. Life expectancy in 1935 was 62. Today its 79. So if we want the program to be solvent, we have to adopt one or more of the following solutions: keep increasing the SS-eligibility age in tandem with life expectancy, increase the FICA tax, cut benefits

Dependency ratios (the number of workers compared to the number of people dependent on workers) may actually be lower than they were in the 60s simply because fewer people are having children.

Even if that weren't true, the idea that we have to keep putting the age up is predicated upon productivity remaining static.

Productivity has gone up consistently and will likely continue to go up.

Curiously some people are breathlessly optimistic about automation when it's a convenient scapegoat for high unemployment but immediately lose all faith in it when it comes to social security projections. These people probably don't have our best interests at heart.

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

#438

Post by hsitz »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #128
DoodleBuggy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 not your money, it is a tax on income like any other. The Supreme Court established in 1960 (Flemming v Nestor) that contributions to Social Security are not your property and the government has no obligation to ever pay you benefits regardless of contribution. People have had this entitlement revoked in practice, though the targeting tends to be selective for out-groups and not a substantial fraction of the po…

I don't think most people understand how social security works. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States...

SS is not quite a pension fund, but it is also certainly _not_ a "tax on income like any other". The funds taken all go to directly to the SSA fund, they aren't available for general use like basic income tax is. For another difference, it is payroll tax, so if you don't have income from wages (e.g., all income is through interest and dividends) there is no SS tax at all.

Importantly, although it's possible that the fund could become exhausted if payments aren't reduced (as baby boomers age and the elderly grow to far outnumber the young), the size of payments would be reduced far before that point. Also, since there will always be at least some young people paying into SS, even if the fund itself was basically exhausted there would still be a continuous stream of incoming payments to distribute out to the elderly, just much reduced from the current size of outgoing payments.

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

#439

Post by mywittyname »

ensignavenger wrote: post #380
mac01021 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

No- pensions take money from you while you work, put it into savings (investments) and then use that money to pay you when you retire. A properly ran pension fund is not dependent on current workers to pay current retirees, and if there were no current workers, there would still be money to pay retirees.

Unfortunately, a significant number of pensions have large amounts of unfunded liabilities, which means they may end up bankrupt or convert into pay-as-you-go.

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

#440

Post by zaroth »

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.

After ACA this is no longer true in Medicaid expansion states.

There is no asset test, and there is no paying back benefits if you are under 65 when you took them.

Medicaid expansion is quite literally the best insurance that money can't buy.

In CA, for example, a family of 4 earning less than $33,500 gets MediCal [1]. If you just want free coverage for the kids, you can earn $64,600. [2]

[1] - http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/medi-cal/Pages/DoYouQualifyF...

[2] - http://hbex.coveredca.com/toolkit/renewal-toolkit/downloads/...

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