Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds • Hacker News Board

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#101

Post by blaser-waffle » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #100

The title on HN apppears to have been altered to leave out the substantive part. The purported cause is unions. " Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds. Unions Are Partly to Blame. "

It was changed because "partly to blame" is disingenuous and creates a bias right off the bat.

"Partly to blame" could be anything -- could be 5%, could be 50% responsible.

Sure, they're partly to blame, but greedy hedge funds could be 90% responsible and the Unions just sort of went along with them.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#102

Post by blaser-waffle » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #69

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...

Is anything like that in Canada?

My RRSP returns are not impressive despite shooting for low cost options, including popular Vanguard funds...

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#103

Post by Pfhreak » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #99

Pfhreak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. In my observation (going by reports from both my own teachers back in the day and from friends and family members who are teachers), teachers' unions are squarely in the former category. Tenured teachers get raises, competent teachers get pink slips.

So, there are no competent, tenured teachers?

And you aren't addressing what I'm saying. I acknowledge unions that promote/pay based on seniority. Those exist, 100%. They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates.

While it may be in the best interest for a union to reward people for how long they've been a working member of the union, it isn't the only structure that exists.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#104

Post by blaser-waffle » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

dvdhnt wrote: post #72

bryanlarsen wrote: post #35

Unions are the reason that teachers have retirement funds in the first place. That doesn't excuse them from the ridiculously high fees, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I can't believe how much union busting is going on in these comments. People take for granted the little wins labor has gotten over the last century.

> I can't believe how much union busting is going on in these comments.

I'm guessing a mix of: professional shills and marketing firms trying to build consensus by appealing to high earners (plenty of them on HN) + the concentration of knowledge worker types on HN, who, in many cases, went straight into tech and haven't had to deal with truly shitty work experiences.

I'm reminded of my brother's roommate at Carnegie Mellon who went straight into a (scholarship-funded) Master's program, then a FAANG immediately out of school musing about how easy it is to have insurance, a nice car, and "why can't they just figure it out?". Super nice guy, but also living in a different universe.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#105

Post by yellowapple » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #103

yellowapple wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. In my observation (going by reports from both my own teachers back in the day and from friends and family members who are teachers), teachers' unions are squarely in the former category. Tenured teachers get raises, competent teachers get pink slips.

So, there are no competent, tenured teachers? And you aren't addressing what I'm saying. I acknowledge unions that promote/pay based on seniority. Those exist, 100%. They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates. While it may be in the best interest for a union to reward people for how long they've been a working member of the union, it isn't the only structure that exists.

> So, there are no competent, tenured teachers?

My middle/high school teachers certainly seemed to have an inverse relationship between tenure and effectiveness, with maybe two exceptions.

> They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates.

And you aren't addressing what I'm saying: sure, meritocratic unions might exist, but given that this is about teachers' unions specifically, and given that (at least in my observation, as anecdotal and therefore flawed as it may be) teachers' unions seem to very rarely (if ever) be meritocratic, any mention of "oh but unions can be meritocratic" without even so much as providing an example seems off-topic and irrelevant.

Realistically, merit is much harder to measure than tenure. No surprise that tenure is consequently the more common metric by which teachers' unions measure the teachers thereof.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#106

Post by elliekelly » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

blaser-waffle wrote: post #102

elliekelly wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Is anything like that in Canada? My RRSP returns are not impressive despite shooting for low cost options, including popular Vanguard funds...

Yes, I don’t know the regulatory framework that allows it off the top of my head but they’re often called “trailer fees” in Canada. Look in the fund prospectus for disclosures relating “shareholder service fees” and “embedded commissions”. If you work with an advisor ask whether they (the advisor) receive compensation from any of the funds they recommend.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#107

Post by toast0 » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

frockington1 wrote: post #74

toast0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ind…

Unfortunately the federal government subsidizes this behavior so I would need to spend more than what my employer does.

Yes, and the question is why should the federal government subsidize distorting the employment market in this fashion? Or at least, why should they continue to do so.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#108

Post by pnutjam » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #87

pnutjam wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Note that the book is fiction. Reality was exaggerated to make is point. I'm not arguing it is a bad book, but it isn't real.

My comment is related to how the thrust of the social commentary was almost wholly diverted by (speculation on my part) moneyed interests.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#109

Post by pnutjam » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #51

pnutjam wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FSA is great if you plan to change employers, there is no clawback if you empty the account in January and change employers in February. I'm not sure why this was never considered, but it's one of the few places an employee can benefit.

There is absolutely no benefit of an FSA over an HSA, other than to pad the coffers of whoever gets the leftover FSA funds if the participant can't accurately forecast their spending. FSA's simply should not exist.

FSA gives you the entire year's contribution up front, HSA does not.