Comments on: 43% of Americans have less than $10k for Retirement, Seriously

By: Aury (Thunderdrake)

Aury (Thunderdrake) — Tue, 25 May 2010 02:57:52 +0000

That is a very, very scary thing to think about… People boasting about their pensions like that is just another way of clinging to the government. The government puts it’s people second to whatever agenda it has. If they starve, they starve.

Not even an ounce of gold? A few blue chip stocks? A savings bond? scary.

No thanks… I’d rather have control over my own assets.

By: Financial Samurai

Financial Samurai — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:27:40 +0000

@Darwin,
Yeah, I just don’t believe it. It can’t be true if we all have more than $10,000.

I wouldn’t be surprised by a retiree bailout at all. It’s the American way!

By: Darwin

Darwin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:14:41 +0000

The survey was over 1000 people, so while not enormous, it’s a decent sized sample. I think we’re going to find in 10 years a lot of people that are of “retirement age” aren’t retired. Because they behaved irresponsibly and didn’t plan. Who knows, given their voting power, perhaps the administration will do a “retiree bailout”.

By: Samurai

Samurai — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:46:34 +0000

I’m pretty sure that this is another example of media sensationalism and schadenfreude. Reporting on stuff to make themselves and others feel good.

I bet the large majority of us have way more than 10K saved. And no, we are nobody special.

By: Oscar At Real Life Money Management

Oscar At Real Life Money Management — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:46:17 +0000

This is really scary. Way too many people living for today and not planning for tomorrow. Unfortunately our government is doing the same thing. When and how will it end, the Good Lord only knows. The sad thing is that all those people not saving will be the ones wanting those of who are making the sacrifices to save to bail them out in the end. What do you do? I guess the best thing is to try and educate as many people as we can.

By: Darwin

Darwin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:49:00 +0000

@jim, While a pension is a contract, contracts are amended routinely. Additionally, when a corporation has pension obligations and goes bankrupt (happened quite a bit in 2008-2009), the obligations fall to the Pension Guarantee Corp which is a government entity. The payments out of that system are not 100%, often they are 80% or less; many factors that drive final value. Aside from the spectre of losing 20% of presumed spending power, many corporations are also ceasing their defined contribution plans. So, a 40-something that assumed he'd retire at 100% pension is now going to have say, $100K plopped into his 401K account to account for vested balance and then no pension. He's on his own. So, he'd have to invest/plan accordingly from then on as well. Finally, on the municipal and government side, I believe it is a mathematical certainty that the growing payrolls with gold-plated pension obligations cannot be supported indefinitely and they will have to either be cut or funded with higher taxes (which has an indirect effect of reducing one's pension buying power). From many different angles, I believe people counting on a pension taking care of them completely are kidding themselves.

By: jim

jim — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:29:11 +0000

A pension is a contract, you can’t just cut the benefit in half after the fact. They can change pension contributions moving forward or give people an incentive to voluntarily convert to a contribution style plan. The gradual shift away from defined benefit pensions has been happening gradually all across America for decades in both public and private jobs.

When you have a pension there really isn’t nearly as much of a need to save on your own. The fact that many people don’t save on their own isn’t fixed by getting rid of pensions.