.... the solution is called personal accountability. If i dork up my finances i certainly don't expect you or some guy in Washington, Rhode Island or California to pay for it. And where in the heck do you get this nonsense that we all have to pay for it with higher taxes?? huh.
The reason people are broke is because they spend more than they have... how's that for simplicity. I don't feel obligated to pay for Mark Brunell who made over 75 million in his career and is now broke...did hedge fund managers mishandle his money? NO. Did fat cats in wall street mishandle his money? NO..HE DID. how about Vince young. $30 million and broke..... Should we tax some guy in dallas or Des Moines to pay for his retirement too? 401k failed people? you chose to participate... you take money out pretax and even have the option of putting 100% in cash. How is that a failure? Nobody forced you to participate, nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to purchase an international mutual fund or bond fund or index...victim victim victim..... pathetically cry victim.
you say 401k not intended to be stand alone for retirement?.. did you even know that someone that makes 100k a year is taxed $15,000 for SSI. roughly $7500 you pay directly...and $7500 your employer pays on your behalf. so lets be conservative you let me invest my own $10,000( intead of $15,000) a year from 30 to 65. even at 5.5% the future value is $1,000,000. then add in saving ONLY $5000 a year into 401k at those same returns give you another $500,000. that is $1,500,000 at 65 and only saving $5000 a year into a 401k in addition to the SSI/DI that you are already paying.
As far as greedy..... what could possibly be more greedy than someone who completely dorks up their financial life and them expects someone they have never met to give up their resources and/or time to make up for it. Where in the world did you come up with the concept that you are entitled to a portion of mine or someone else s life to make up for your mistakes?
Where to start?
Thanks for the unsolicited math lessons btw. Glad to see you are not intimidated by "public math" or the boundless arrogance of just assuming the rest of us require financial education.
Let's see, ever hear of the Emergency Room? 50 million people uninsured and growing. They still consume medical care, the cost of which comes directly out of your and mine pockets with ridiculously high and ever climbing insurance rates. That's a tax, even if the paperwork involved does not say IRS on it. Now apply this line of thinking to future retirements and imagine what we will pay for Social Security when all those millions of people with no means are too old or sick to continue to schlepp themselves to work. I know, I know, you think it will be broke and gone by then, reality is that no politician can afford to allow that to happen politically so they will just take it out of the hide of the working middle class, like they always do. That's going to be a very much higher tax, my friend, and that bill will come to you directly courtesy of the IRS and no matter how smart your Turbo Tax program thinks it is, you will pay it. I believe that should answer your "huh" and raise it by a collective Ouch!
Secondly, I like investing my own as well. That however does not eliminate the fact that a vast majority of people in the good ol USA are unable to do so not because they are too dumb (though some surely are, I give you that) but because they do not make enough to be able to put away anything after they are done feeding their families. In case you haven't noticed, having a 401K these days and actually being lucky enough to be able to contribute to it, puts you squarely into a very privileged minority. You can yell and scream about "personal responsibility" all you want but if there is no money to invest then your point is still rendered painfully moot! Funny that your arguments seem only based on the assumption that people are broke solely because they have willfully mismanaged their money. How about the rest of the people (the actually majority) who are struggling with poverty, illness, job outsourcing, FURLOUGH, recession, financial crisis, etc?
Is this helping at all yet? Or is redoubling the chant "Victim" "Victim" allowing you to still continue to ignore those uncomfortable bits of reality when and where they might intrude into your cushy little life.
As far as me or anyone else wanting or "feeling entitled" to what you have, you can rest easy; observing your myopically simplistic world view leads me to believe that you couldn't possibly have accumulated enough to make it even worthwhile for anyone to come after you.
