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Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

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Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#61

Post by darawk »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #49
darawk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very strange interpretation. Lost revenue relative to what? Not having it? Is the government losing revenue by not taxing the bottom 50% of income earners, too? The tax code is structured this way to incentivize saving for retirement. Social security exists for the same reason. The government allows you to defer taxation in these structured vehicles so that you are better able to care for yourself in your o…

>These accounts are no more a "give away" to the rich than the progressive income tax schedule is a "give away" to the poor. Since only the rich are employed by employers who offer the benefits of these accounts, it is effectively a give away to the rich. If it wasn't a give away restricted to a certain populace, then it would be de-linked from employment and available for everyone.

Lots of employers offer these. Only if your definition of "the rich" is extremely broad is it restricted to "the rich", first of all. Certainly many people making 60-80k have access to these accounts, and quite often some level of employer matching. I guess you could call that "rich" relative to some people, but it's not what I think of when I hear "the rich".

Secondly, nobody (well, maybe some people, but mostly nobody) describes the progressive tax schedule as a "give away" to the poor, despite it representing a much larger wealth transfer than these retirement accounts.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#62

Post by toast0 »

frockington1 wrote: post #41
Ididntdothis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty crazy that employers have any power over things like health insurance or retirement savings and play by different rules. These should be completely disconnected from employment. The only thing employers should compete on is things like 401k matching.

My employer subsidizes my health insurance and contributes to my 401k and a pension. It's a nice perk and part of the reason why i work for them. It's a win-win

Employer based health insurance and what not makes it harder to compare job offers and increases your costs to switch employers.

If instead, your employer simply paid you the money they would have paid to subsidize these things, and you paid for the services you wanted, you could actually keep your services in case you changed jobs or lost your job or took time off or whatever. It would be pretty hard to setup an individual pension that behaved like an employer pension, but pensions are already on their way out.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#63

Post by kevindong »

It amazes me how inexpensive the bribes companies pay out are in comparison to the profit they make off of the deals generated by the bribes.

> The Nationwide subsidiary paid $4.58 million to the National Association of Counties in 2017, the latest available data. About 1.6 million county employees and retirees have participated in 457 plans for which Nationwide is the record keeper, said Brian Namey, a spokesman for the county association.

$4.58 million / 1.6 million employees = $3.03/employee

> At the International Association of Fire Fighters, about 100,000 of the 292,000 members are in a Nationwide retirement plan, according to union President Harold Schaitberger. He said the union’s for-profit subsidiary, called the International Association of Fire Fighters Financial Corp., earns $3.4 million a year for various product endorsements—$2.5 million of it from Nationwide—and sends the parent union $2.45 million to support programs that benefit firefighters.

$2.5 million / 100,000 employees = $25/employee

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#64

Post by pnutjam »

aphextron wrote: post #33
ummonk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are often rent-seeking monopolies. Labor organization is important, but that doesn't mean those claiming to organize labor are actually always doing what is in labor's best interests.

>Unions are often rent-seeking monopolies. And so are corporations. Unions at least have the interest of employees as their central (espoused) tenant. There is and always has been a concerted effort between capital and the media to undermine that fact in the mind of the public. This is a huge contributing factor to the falling bargaining power of labor over the last 50 years. Don't fall for it.

This morning I was thinking of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". If you've read it (and you should, it's a good novel) you know it's about worker rights and the story follows a guy who happens to work at a meat packing plant for awhile.

If you haven't read it, you've probably been taught it is about the bad practices of food producers in that era. Nevermind that part is ancillary to the central story.

Just pointing out that this warping of views to suit the wealthy has been going on a long time.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#65

Post by ptmcc »

My wife works for the local school district, and when she started I helped her navigate the retirement plan options.

They actually have numerous 403b providers to choose from, including Vanguard, but they basically offer no guidance (probably fear of some sort of liability or fiduciary duty).

But of course they allow their providers to come to facilities and offer "retirement advising" meetings. Naturally, the most predatory providers are the ones that have sales people to send out to make field visits. What's worse is that it is very unclear that this is not a district/HR-sponsored event, but purely a sales meeting from a provider.

My wife, thinking she was doing the responsible and proactive thing, went to one of these meetings with Valic. She very nearly got hooked into their scam of expensive, high-fee, garbage annuity products within her 403b. When she brought the paperwork home I was dumbfounded with how utterly terrible the product is, and how lengthy and opaque the prospectuses are. By the way, "Valic" literally means Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company.

She was massively frustrated by the experience, especially on top of the stresses of being new to a job she nearly got suckered into an awful retirement plan, and the district does basically nothing to oversee that the providers are actually any good.

Fortunately we were able to bail on Valic and sign up with Vanguard, which is a great option. Unfortunately, one has to a) know what they are looking for, and b) go out of their way to find it and sign up.

This is one of those cases where "freedom of choice" devolves into "buyer beware". Having lots of options is not inherently a good thing when many of those options are hot garbage and information and guidance is not transparent.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#66

Post by stale2002 »

Pfhreak wrote: post #17
seibelj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees have the ability to switch jobs, whereas unions make it hard to join a different shop at the same seniority level as before. I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules.

This is FUD. There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc. Also, as someone in tech, I constantly hear people talking about downleveling when they change jobs, I hear people talking about unclear promotion criteria, etc.

> Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc.

Yes there is. It is the fact that many unions do indeed do this.

For whatever reason, people will often democratically choose to have stupid rules, such as seniority rules.

The problem with a union is that if people democratically choose the dumb decision, then I am screwed. No thank you!

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#67

Post by pnutjam »

aianus wrote: post #38
aphextron wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unions are often rent-seeking monopolies. And so are corporations. Unions at least have the interest of employees as their central (espoused) tenant. There is and always has been a concerted effort between capital and the media to undermine that fact in the mind of the public. This is a huge contributing factor to the falling bargaining power of labor over the last 50 years. Don't fall for it.

Don't condescend to me. The only bargaining power is the ability to switch jobs easily -- something unions specifically fight against.

For an educated and specialized workforce, changing employers can result in huge wage gains, I know, I've benefited from this too. However, much of this is due to the present economy and who knows how long it will last.

For an average worker, the path to higher wages is through seniority and institutional knowledge that makes them more valuable. When they change jobs, they are often right back at the bottom, union or no union. They are also competing against young, fresh workers.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#68

Post by lotsofpulp »

darawk wrote: post #61
lotsofpulp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These accounts are no more a "give away" to the rich than the progressive income tax schedule is a "give away" to the poor. Since only the rich are employed by employers who offer the benefits of these accounts, it is effectively a give away to the rich. If it wasn't a give away restricted to a certain populace, then it would be de-linked from employment and available for everyone.

Lots of employers offer these. Only if your definition of "the rich" is extremely broad is it restricted to "the rich", first of all. Certainly many people making 60-80k have access to these accounts, and quite often some level of employer matching. I guess you could call that "rich" relative to some people, but it's not what I think of when I hear "the rich". Secondly, nobody (well, maybe some people, but mostly nob…

jlmorton was referring to the employer contribution limits of $56k, which are utilized, obviously, by rich companies.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#69

Post by elliekelly »

dangerboysteve wrote: post #29

This Frontline doc (2013) paints a nice picture. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/retirement-gamble/ Many pension funds are screwing their members with high fee mutual funds resulting in 2-3%+ haircuts on annual returns. And this does not include all the mystery fees on top of everything else. Imagine what the compounding effects on this is. And these funds are shitty compared to Vanguard index fund over time.…

12b-1 fees[1] are the biggest scam the mutual fund industry has going.

[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/10/15/why-we-opp...

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#70

Post by pnutjam »

mrep wrote: post #42
ralph84 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Some of the highest paid individual contributors in the world are actors and professional athletes. They're represented by unions.

Aren't those industry wide unions whose main purpose is to set wage floors because there are so many people desperately trying to get into the industry that without them, employee conditions would be terrible for those just starting out? I don't think that is a problem for programmers and it is way different than a company specific union. If you want to start an industry wide programmer union, by all means, start one…

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