Libertarian666 wrote:
moda0306 wrote:
Mdraf wrote:
Nice try but it would fall apart as soon as CNN started running specials on granny eating cat food.
I also think that once they put Obamacare to bed the Democrats will be going after 401Ks, IRAs, SEP-IRAs etc like some European countries are doing. The first move will be an "option" for people to convert their various holdings into T-bonds. Eventually the option will become an obligation.
Mdraf,
Do your really think that any admin, democrat or republican, would upset that Wall Street trough that is 401k plans? They may have different methods of showing it, but both sides love Wall Street. There'd be so little to be gained by forcing people to buy treasuries when they can control their own debt market.
Oh, that's easy. All they have to do is pay Wall Street big commissions on the Treasury sales, et voila!
There is more to it than just commissions.
Wall Street loves retirement plans because it gives them a huge pool of money to repeatedly profit from, and not just through commissions, but through the opportunity to always have "dumb money" to sell stocks to when they are high and to buy from when they are low.
If you read our PP book, you may recall the "401(k)asino" illustration, and that's not too far off the mark. Wall Street loves suckers who will come into the casino without fully grasping the enormity of the house advantage and play basically until they are broke (or at least until they have severely underperformed the market, potentially for most of their careers).
The degree to which this makes mandatory treasury-backed annuities unlikely is hard to fully convey. I'm telling you, though, it's DOA. An optional treasury-backed annuity would actually be a REALLY nice option for a plan design like a 401(k), simply because most participants don't understand how to make a lump sum last a lifetime, but the insurance industry will strongly oppose this as well because it would seriously eat into their annuity business.
When I read the "government is going to confiscate retirement accounts" stories, I marvel at how little the reporters seem to understand how all of this works.