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The Retirement Gamble
If you’ve been watching any commercial television lately, you are well aware that the financial services industry is very busy running expensive ads imploring us to worry about our retirement futures. Open a new account today, they say. They are not wrong that we should be doing something: America is facing a retirement crisis. One in three Americans has no retirement savings at all. One in two reports that they can’t save enough. On top of that, we are living longer, and health care costs, as we all know, are increasing. But, as Martin Smith found when investigating the retirement planning and mutual funds industries in Frontline documentary 'The Retirement Gamble', those advertisements are imploring us to start saving for one simple reason. Retirement is big business - and very profitable.
Some highlights of his report and the documentary include:
"...they don’t have to give you the best advice, just advice that isn’t too egregiously terrible..."
"You’ll get lots of advice, but chances are it won’t be worth much. Eighty five percent of all financial advisers and financial planners are really just brokers or salesman. Their incentive is to sell you a product that makes them a higher commission, not necessarily a product that maximizes your chances of saving more. Only 15 percent of advisers are “fiduciaries” - advisers who by law must operate with your best interests in mind."
"...While reporting on retirement plans, nothing has been more surprising to me than the corrosive effect of fees on our retirement savings. It’s this simple: Fund fees can erode as much as half or more of your prospective gains..."
"...Sadly, a recent AARP study reported that 70 percent of mutual fund savers were not even aware that they were paying any fees at all.
Is there hope for change? The Labor Department says they plan to reintroduce a new fiduciary rule this summer that will force the financial services industry to think of us first when it comes to retirement. We’ll see how that goes."
We believe everyone should watch this documentary as, in Martin Smith's own words, "What I uncovered while making this documentary made me rethink my financial future. It just might do the same for you."
Chapter 1 - The Retirement Circus
Americans entrust trillions to financial service providers, but is the system working?
Chapter 2 - It Used To Be Much Easier
Pensions were once the main road to retirement until an IRS loophole changed everything?
Chapter 3 - The Tyranny of 'Fees'
The father of index funds explains how 401(k) fees can diminsh your retirement savings.
Chapter 4 - Are Index Funds The Answer?
Martin Smith asks whether index funds offer the safest way to save for retirement.
Chapter 5 - Advisers or Salesmen?
Why your financial planner may not always have your best interests in mind
Source: Frontline
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After you adjust your returns for inflation, all you have done is paid fees.
JOE FRESH meet
Bangladesh http://i.imgur.com/SY4tDad.jpg
fuck you Loblaws, JC Penny, Ackman
Ackman man up with what you are going to do for the hundreds of dead and injured who no longer need to worry about retirement
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/joe-fresh-clothes-made-at-factory-in-collaps...
#bhopal
www.joefresh.com
https://twitter.com/JoeFresh
and a tour of JOE (Mirman) FRESH's lovely and well engineered home
http://houseandhome.com/design/joe-mimran-kimberley-newport-mimrans-home...
Can Joe Fresh Save JCPenney... and Retail?
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/04/18/Joe-Fresh-Save-Retail-0...
Retirement? Ha, I get to drive this till the wheels fall off.
I saw that program...
First and foremost... you can ignore the million(s) the financial analysts say you MUST have saved up in order to retire.
That's self-serving bullshit!
Simplify your lifestyle and you can do it for much, much less.
Second, you do NOT need the gubbermint to run your 401k for you...
which was the "subtle" message being purveyed here.
Another gem of a doc from Frontline.
Though everyone should know by now that mutual funds are a total rip-off, like Bogle says INDEX FUNDS. Why does anyone expect an active managed to beat the index over time? Other than persistent myths about human acuity..
I was pleasantly surprised that Frontline was positive about index funds. I figured they'd be intent on casting even one such as Bogle as a crook.
But the end game, to be sure, is to confiscate 401Ks and replace them with "safe" government pensions invested in "riskless" securities.
We can't fear the reaper.
Who the hell want's to live past 65?
Build your nest egg, and check out around 50.
Shake the dice, if you have bad genes,
Oh well.
See you in the next world...
I am there already.
It's not too bad, except for the Friday Night Fish Fry.
(Too many bones)
I'm really not positive about index funds. Too much counterparty risk.
indeed. Indexed ETF’s are great for gains if bought on the dips, you can write calls from SPY shares held as they dive too later on, for example, or DIA, but counter-party risk, return OF your capital, is the single primary issue here. All the rest assumes an honest market, bank, etc., that doesn’t Corzine you or Cyprus you. WE know better. My retirement is fine … it’s .9999 fine, thank you.
"Second, you do NOT need the gubbermint to run your 401k for you...
which was the "subtle" message being purveyed here."
Yep, that's pretty much what I came away with here. It was an effective hit job by the government here, because everything they pointed out was true and are very fundamental problems with the financial industry, but that doesn't entail that we go into a govvy pension plan.
"but that doesn't entail that we go into a govvy pension plan"
Just an additional note, the finance industry basically runs the various government pension plans via the "external consulting" line item you see in the budgets. They make most of their bacon directly off of taxpayers. For example, in Wisconsin, they pay about half a billion dollars a year to various private firms (and they lost about half of the fund value in the crash, so clearly not a good ROI there). Interestingly, the budget deficit for Wisconsin that led to all those protests was about half a billion dollars.
3 Words That Don't Exist In Mutual Funds:
Allignment of Interests
Never existed. Never will.
on the other hand, words that do exist or at least implied are: aaaand it's gone it's gone it's all gone.
http://youtu.be/4TlPo0yCSa4
Don't count on the fiat in your bank account for your retirement. As they have shown, they will flat out steal that if need be. Your only hope is in physical gold and silver.
http://ericsprott.blogspot.ca/
Then you get to pay off the IRS when you take distributions at what ever tax rate congress deems and those fees took say 3% off the top for 30- 40 years and you take all the risk. Such a deal.
Very convenient that Congress has already passed laws and the Surpreme Idiots sought fit to agree- that ex post facto law restrictions don't apply to property, perhaps a move against TBTF property would motivate TPTB to demand CHANGE from their Bitchez in Washington.
imo...from experience...
there are 30 or more foreign countries where one can move when
62, collect social security and live well assuming moderate income
for 40 years...
+81 on the simplify comment, if you still need the shit you did when
were younger at "retirement" age, no one can help...
LT
My wife, a fishing pole and a dog.
pods
401k's are one of the biggest scams put on the American public. Traditional IRA's are the close second.
I love how all of the stock broker people I follow on twitter muse: "Oh, PBS had a slanted look at 401k's. It's a solid wealth building vehicle". What schills......even if some happen to be "good people".
It reminds me of when the government and those who work lottery divisions in states across America and their retort to the "tax on stupid" jabs from opposition.
Their response? "But the money goes towards the children and schools!".
I'm just surprised JPM couldn't find someome even slightly more presentable for the documentary.
It is a solid wealth building vehicle -- IF the government doesn't use it to steal your money by confiscating the fund, raising taxes when you want to draw down the fund, or railroading you into buying treasuries. That's one helluva big IF!
didn’t you know? It’s for the children. It’s always for the children. Byebye retirement, deposit insurance, rights to free speech & self-defense, right to a trial before life in prison-it’s all for the children.
I was psyched when the DOL said they were going to require each fund provider to make their fees transparent last summer. How stupid I was to think they would do it in a line item form on the first page of the statement along with the account balance. They buried the fees as a "cost per thousand" on page 15 of the statement that no one reads anyway.
God knows how much money was thrown at these guys from lobbyists on both sides.
Shit every time they say they are going to make something more transparent it always becomes more difficult to find. I used to work out daily, now I just carry an annuity prospectus with me wherever I go.
Well Doc when you are strong enough you can start to study up on tax law.
pods
Amen, brothers. The fee disclosure to participants is called the 404(a)(5) disclosure rule. Fee disclosure to the plan sponsors is called the 408(b)(2) disclosure. ERISA stuff, obviously. And most of those statements were absolute CRAP, in my opinion. I don't even think they met the letter of the law in most cases, let alone tell you anything meaningful. Insurance company-type retirement plans were the worst. They were written specifically to obfuscate what they were supposed to explain clearly. Most participants (and most plan sponsors) didn't even know what the document was or why it mattered when they received it. Just looked like so much typical "legal boilerplate" they ignored it (like they usually ignore these things).
There is a small but growing movement in the retirement plan world to do this shit the right way. Get rid of the conflicts of interest (mostly driven by commmissions and "revenue sharing") and have full, CLEARLY UNDERSTOOD disclosure. No, your plan is NOT free, but you should at least know what you're paying and what you're getting for that cost.
As you might have been suspectd, I'm part of that group and have been for years now. Full fiduciary duty to all my clients (including taking an ERISA co-fiduciary 3(38) role to the retirement plans I advise) and all that cost shit ON PAGE ONE. Here's what you started with, here's what you made, here are all the costs you paid (including mine) and here's what you netted. And surprisingly it doesn't cost any more to do it properly than it does to do it crappily. Usually less, in most cases.
I'm outnumbered by at least 20:1 by the scumbag brokers who are conflicted against their clients in such unnatural ways it's mind numbing.
You might be interested to know that your plan's sponsor (your employer) has a fiduciary duty to their plan participants, whether they have a good advisor, a bad one or none. If they're jacking you with crappy, over-priced funds you can drop a dime on them to the DOL (Dept. of Labor). Those DOL sons-of-bitches make the IRS look like a bunch of cupcakes. Complaints to them usually result in plan sponsors phones ringing in about 24 hours. They LOVE to smack "big bad company fat cats" around. No lawsuit required. Just the THREAT of a DOL audit makes them shit their pants.
Remember that a plan sponsor's fiduciary duty to the plan is not protected by the corporate veil. It drills right through to the PERSONAL ASSETS OF THE SPONSOR if they are found to be in breech of those responsibilities (which are many). (Google "401k small company litigation" and read until your eyes glaze over)
If you want to see a change, start bitchin'. You don't need a lawyer. You just need the DOL's phone number. The more you bitch, the more plan sponsors will take this shit seriously, like they're supposed to.
NoDebt, a cannot plus you up enough for this post. A true gem amongst the sands of ZH. Thank you.
+1000 to you sir if I could do so. Knowing how far deep fiduciary duty does drill is something I was not aware of. Now if only that was applied more frequently across the industry!
epic … deserves a +50
RETIREMENT........
LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I semi retired at 58. i would be fine if bernanke pulled his dick out of my ass
I THOUGHT his dick tasted like your ass!
I get so confused anymore.
you need to think about what you just stated. It does sound like you might be a bit "confused"
cowdiddy, if I have to explain my humor, it's not funny anymore.
No, I didn't really really do those things. Try the right brain.
Just jerking your chain a little. Cheers
Cheers.
It really does not matter how much retirement you have saved. Under the current arragement the hospitals and doctors end up with it all and bankrupt you with your final fight with illness. Has happened to thousands of people I know and knew.
Leave em with one big fat IOU and tell them to F.O.
Roger that. Timing is EVERYTHING. Become indigent two years prior to needing full=time nursing care. Give it away or bury it. Fock the system and all those who propigate it.
3things guaranteed in life:
Birth,death,taxes
At birth you pay doctor
At death you pay doctor
Taxes pay doctors
No doctors can save you from the inevitable death, they just delay the date
AMA used to sponsor cigarettes.
I know doctors who complain how "it isn't worth becoming a doctor"...while they earn well over $1m a year and live in huge mansions with 5 cars and take multiple vacations a year, etc. They are making me sick, listening to them. Death is preferable to paying these f*%kers to save me.
The most dangerous fucking place on the planet is a hospital.
The most dangerous fucking people on the planet are doctors.
You want to die? Let these fucking pricks cut you open in their staph infected microbial pig troughs they call a hospital. These malpracticing douchebags kill more people accidentally every year than guns and cars combined.
Just fucking pray you don't get sick and hospitalized. You'll either end up broke or dead, or maybe both.
In the past 40 years, I've needed a doctor exactly 6 times. Once when I, dumbass, fell out of a tree while drunk, once for a hernia operation, the other four times for virus infections or flu. The past 15 years, aged 45-59, one time and they didn't fix my issue. Fixed it myself by changing my diet.
As we age, diet and exercise become more important. My best exercise comes from gardening/property maintenance. Keep busy outdoors, eat well on food you grow yourself, fuck the system and DON'T EVER RETIRE.
Keep doing what you're doing until you keel over. It's the way nature planned it, after all.
Retirement is a fucking hoax, perpetrated by the bloodsuckers on Wall Street and in Washington.
Fuck you, Bernanke. Fuck the Fed, Fuck the government. If we got rid of all the bankers and politicians, we'd have a pretty sweet deal, but then, what would the parasites do? Maybe we could hire them as sharecroppers, the asshats.
What, pray tell, did the doctors do for you during/post flu? Fluids?
I do, however, echo your sentiments about retiring: keep in good health & keep working at things to death. Working as a slave for someone else, no, but working at something. It does keep the mind & heart healthier. A sedentary heart, lungs, legs and mind are a quick way to an unpleasant death.
Not everyone dies sick. Live adventurously and die having fun. Or stock up on booze like Phil Katz or pills and don’t die sick, die your way when the day comes.
They're looking for another layer to keep the ponzi going and running out of suck-- er, I mean clients. Of course they're going to be active marketing!
The worst thing about saving for retirement is that all your retirement "savings" are locked into valuation by the FRN, Euro, etc.
You could have $25 million for retirement. What happens if that is the going rate for a gallon of gas?
Or what if the benevolent US government decides that your retirement is better used to fund THEM (or the banks) instead of you?
Get all the funds you can outside of this system. Look at any FED chart about money/debt/credit, Every single one of them looks to be an exponential function.
That is because they are.
pods
Madoff was a good broker planner
Goldman refers to their clients as muppets.
Jim Cramer gave a stinging rebuke of Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. He noted that the average person knew lttle about investing.
Morgan Stanley ran TV ads saying "your dream is our dream." Turned out they were running contests to get "advisors" to sell in house junk funds to clients.
"You and UBS." UBS kept a strong buy on Enron all the way down to 4 days before committting bankruptcy, while "advisors" were told not to warn clients. For mutual fund holders they had lipstick on a pig programs like PACE.
These companies have conflicts of interest- except that they don't, as their interest is the financial company, not the client.
I can proudly say I fired Smith Barney and moved ALL my retirement accounts over to scottrade where I am doing MUCH better.
My guy at Smith Barney was convinced I was committing financial suicide. Since leaving the large brokerage, now looking from the outside in so to speak, I can see all the "win-win" sales pitches they played on me over the years. I now look at brokerage houses in the same light as real estate agents (lying bottom feeders).
Alpo, Bitchez!!
Just listen to Fidelity and follow the Green Line. That’s all you need to know because it goes to Oz you see. It was once a yellow brick road, but, that was when the road was paved with bricks of gold instead of fiat money.
As far as I can tell, the rule of Wall Street has always been as follows:
You put up the money and take all the risk. If you profit, they take half and their commission. If you lose, you take the full loss and they still get their commission.
Their methods have changed radically over the years, but, one way or another this rule has stood the test of time.
Cashed out of my 401K w/Fido. Looked up the 2013 tax tables for state/fed & told them how much to withold. They tried to put me thru this bullshit on the website to prove that I understood about the witholding AFTER I told them how much to w/h. Went to their website & got inundated with 4 security questions, blah, blah, blah with them on the line. I finally said "GIVE ME MY FUCKING MONEY". They put me on hold, returned very quickly & told me the my redemption had been processed. SHAMELESS FUCKERS!
They don't want you in control of your OWN money, spending on things that YOU want or need, they want to play with your money so that THEY can fucking Corzine it from you and spend YOUR MONEY on things THEY want. It's really fucking simple - so simple even a Keynesian can figure it out...
I just love how the name "Corzine" has now come to symbolize a verb meaning "swindle". Betcha his pappy's proud.
From Jersey? No doubt at all.
You make a common mistake, it's not your money. It's their money. They created it, built the system of lies to accomplilsh its use and reap the benefits,
It's their money, they just let you use it for awhile, then they take it back.
That's why they feel no shame or empathy, it's not your money, its their money, you are just using it for a while.
One of the ways to effectively discipline a child is to provide an allowance, and then take it away, for punishment. They will be conditioned. They will be eager to get back their allowance from the parent.
So give the American riches beyond that of any other country, beyond their wildest dreams, to the extent that it is their god given right. Then TAKE IT ALL AWAY. They will beg to get back a sliver of what they had before.
People here, see it, moreso than most places. But still, far too many do not.
To THOSE, from now on, who are ruthlessly lazy-minded, and who are so brazen about it, so as to parade it around, without an ounce of humility by shouting "tin foil hat" or Conspiracy Theorist to anyone who HAS chosen to think, To them I declare YOU must be rooted out and called what you are in truth: USEFUL IDIOT. They are useful to those driving the Agenda.
Useful Idiots are an evil den of vipers who must be rooted out, or shoo'd back under their rocks and Silenced. They are a thick vile smog that makes it hard to breathe, to think, and they are a cancer, and people of America must be cured of them by shining a light on them. Watch the Useful Idiot scurry and wilt when faced by truth.
Do you hear me talking to you krugman, pied piper of Useful Idiots.
I saw the Frontline Documentary last night. It told me nothing I have not known for nearly two decades. When the 401K took off, I told everyone I knew that Wall-Street would end up getting most of these people's returns. I have been proven right. For myself, I did get a 401K a decade and a half ago. I went into a non-managed index fund. It simply bought the S&P, no active management. 1% fees tops. I bailed out in 2007 and dumped it into a treasury fund. So I missed the blow up and I have missed the run up. But at least I have all my money plus a real + return every year since I went in. Small risk, small gains, but Wall-Street didn't get my gains.
I still hear main stream economists come on TV and radio and tell people to buy their company 401K and diversify their funds, growth, value, etc. etc. and NEVER look at the statements, just keep putting money in, "You can't lose!" NO, Wall-Street can't lose in that scenario.
In the 90's I remember people at work calculating the day they would be millionaires, I laughed. Ain't one of theose fuckers a millionaire today, not ONE. But Wall-Street is full of them.
Your index fund cost might be 1% but do you know what other plan costs you paid for along the way? Remember it's an administratively complex government-regulated program. It's definitely not free. And whether you paid for those costs in hard dollars or through inflated fund costs, believe me, you paid.
FYI- A Vanguard S&P index fund runs at a 0.07% expense ratio. If you're paying 1% to be in your plan's index fund, guess where the other 93 bps per year went.
Does it begin with hookers and end with blow?
pods
I saw that Frontline piece last night. It's very good, however most ZH readers will plainly see...things are much much worse than the show let's on. Perhaps it was due to their trying to make the show more accessible to a wider audience so they don't get overly detailed. But those that know a little more about the market will see...it's worse than they are telling you.
Nevertheless, a good show that's worth watching and recommending to friends who may not know what the fuck is really going on with their 401K's.
Interesting this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-24/texas-university-fund-sold-375-...
link was from zerohedge:
The holdings by University of Texas Investment Management, or Utimco, may help establish the depository as a major center for U.S. and international gold investors, state Representative Giovanni Capriglione, a Republican who sponsored the bill, said in an interview on April 23.
“I recently had a town hall meeting in my district with 200 people, and the gold depository was the No. 1 issue,” Capriglione said. “Most Americans are worried about an economic collapse.”
Distrust of the U.S. Federal Reserve and concern that the dollar will lose value spurred a push in more than a dozen states to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender.
1st time i"ve seen mention in the msm that most Americans are worried about an economic collapses. I thought it was all roses and glory and "ongoing recovery"?
Perhaps the stench of death cannot be hidden forever?
1/3 of the economy is the result of shuffling the other 2/3's $$
I think you meant 4/3rds around, hence the deficits and the large consumer debt.
A bit surprised that nobody has yet mentioned this: Getting new accounts is probably the only way they will be able to pay the old accounts, hence all the expensive adverts.
Hmmm. Isn't that what Madoff essentially did?
IBC if you want to avoid IBS and the IRS.
All you need to know about retirement................good luck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg
I can tell you from first hand experience that I have watched hundreds of people roll in and out of various financial firms when I was in the business years ago. The business model was simple, go and gather all of your friends and family and get them to invest with us. Then when you run out of people to sell products to you will leave and find a new job and we will keep those accounts you left behind. And they always encouraged products with the largest comission payouts. I used to hear "advisors" joke about how much they were "getting" from thier clients. Non of them knew thier ass from a hole in the ground. They were taught to say certain things and move on to the next one. It made me absolutley sick watching it.
The fees the wealth management firms and their advisors rake in from third parties keep rolling in and none of it is reported to their clients. Commissions from mutual fund companies. Trailing fees on top of that each month. Now trailing fees from exchange traded fund companies and trust issuers. Fees from other financial outfits for selling their guaranteed deposit instruments (paid up front in real dollars based on term of instrument while client gets nominal dollars each year). Proxy solicitation fees if advisor's clients vote a certain way, fixed income spreads, new issue spreads, etc., etc. None of this is reported. Their client's haven't the faintest idea what this does to their return. If one thing is clear, it is that the banks and their advisors come first.
Keep in mind that aside from this they also charge all sorts of commissions, management and administrative fees that clients do see. If these clients saw the complete picture I'm convined there would be outrage.
People are worried about the calculus of derivative pricing when they don't even understand the spread arithmetic that governs banking.
CEOs aren't usually math nerds, the bread and butter of how they "make" the Bank's P&L isn't complex.
The smugness of the asset managers at JPM, Fidelity, Wells Fargo in these interviews says it all, “We don’t care because we don’t have to”.
I want to punch that jackass from JPM in the face. “I wish it was simple”, he says. Well guess what dirt bag, it would be simple if we had sound money that held its purchasing power. It would be simple if people could just save their money in your bank, earn a modest rate of return above inflation, and not have to risk their principal.
Why isn’t it this simple? Why does it have to be so complicated instead? Because, pinstriped pirates like him don’t want it to be, that’s why. If it were, he wouldn’t have a job.
"fiduciary" responsibility? Are you f'ing kidding me? RIA's have to be the biggest crooks in the business...the term fiduciary is grossly abused. And the adds on TV are mostly Fidelity, Schwab et. al. How do they get paid more anyway??? It's all external shit as they don't have proprietary products anyway. And yes, you're an idiot if you call them for "solid" advice.
This is a paranoid piece at best. Move along people.
Agreed. Most RIAs (series 65) guys are just old-fashioned broker/dealer guys who have that license so they can sell fee-based products like wrap accounts, etc. They're still product salesman. They have no real concept of what fiduciary duty entails.
Even the FINRA Principal Exams are a joke, I "crammed" at the bar next door over a week's worth of happy hours for the 24 & 27 and my paycheck was happily rewarded. At least the CFP exam has education and experience requirements, which exactly is why banks and brokerages shun it for entry-level positions (they sure as hell don't want to pay for that level of experience at entry levels- so you hire an army of greedy muppets and give them an obscene 60 days to pass the 7, and start weeding them out from there). Being an RR of an advisory firm is only a certification that one has demonstrated the parroting skills of a monkey to read a memo from management about the limited options that the individual firm may provide, it doesn't have anything to do with actually balancing customer goals, risk appetite, and investment horizon against all available & suitable investment vehicles and current and anticipated market conditions and risks.
Only way to 'win' is to hide as much of your assets as possible. We (20-30-40-somethings) will be means tested to even get part of 'our' social security money we've donated. Bottom line, you save, you are responsible--well FU, you need to pay your fair share, because people are hurting and you're an evil speculator!
What they don't know you have, won't hurt them....hide it while you still can...
Not too many places to hide bro. That's the problem. My philosophy is own lots of "stuff" but I'm prepared to be worth 50% or less of my peak savings when the SHTF someday...
Not happy about it, just prepping for what's to come.
Cold hard gold and currency
Hate to say it but you'll need more than that. You'll need raw land, agriculture of some sort, metals will only have so much value when this all comes undone. I'd rather have a profit center that can withstand the shock than some bullion that's just bullion when it gets heavy.
No right answers here, but we're going to see how it pays to have tangible items one day, and yes, metals too.
I'd rather "gift" it to my kids ;-)
You’ll need land but WHERE? Land in the police-state is THEIR land not your land, your yields from it will be raped by taxation & quality of land destroyed by eminent-domain to do fracking, tar-sands pipelines and put up windmills in areas too poor to yield power anyhow.
Bullion is the profit that is strong in all times of crisis-it’s the ability to run with your money (gold). Silver’s for trade but heavy in larger amounts. I’ll flat out say it: if you retire in the USA you’ll retire a slave. Period.
THAT’S why gold in 0.1, ¼ and 1 oz are easy to hide yet smaller is easier to barter/trade. Off all books for good.
Long boating accidents.
The only ones overseeing my retirement funds are a pair of spoonbills.
This "Frontline" is just rehashing facts UK newspapers uncovered investigating British retirement plans where the big winners are the financial institutions that collect plan administration fees (many fees hidden in the fine print) that decimate your retirement income. Not to worry, most workers in the USA have less than $30,000 in their IRAs. The best advice a retirement planner can give you is start collecting your Social Security government pension at 62. How long the USA will be able to continue paying Social Security pensions at the current level is an open question, what with the need to buy stuff like the new $350 million Raptor jet fighter, a plane full of electronic and mechanical bugs, way more bugs than the Boeing Dreamliner.
When are people going to wake up. Every goddamn politician is lying to you about the American dream. Every money manager is only managing their money, making sure they will earn their retirement off your back.
I went to work for a company that had profit sharing that had been negotiated by the union before i hired on. The company held a meeting to inform the workers about the financial condition of the company right after i came on board. They explained that there were no profits to be shared because the company had borrowed miilions from the parent company at 9% interest and all the earnings went to pay the bonds. The negotiators for the company must have laid back and lit a cigareete after they got the union to sign that contract. Later though i did not join the union or stay long enough to join the 401K plan , i still got the literature and was shocked that the plan administrators were skimming over 2% off the top as fees. I explained to a union steward that they were getting ripped off and he said he would talk to another fellow that knew about such thinmgs. I gave up , i was the only one that had a clue. I was not in the plan and i had no dog in the fight.
three in three have already lost it all. its already gone.
They are crooks, plain and simple.
Whatever you save will be stolen or taxed into oblivion.
Given the easy access to quality info on the web, it makes more and more sense for self-directed retirement investments. A well-allocated portfolio will do better and have less fees than the 'managed' BS.
If you can't/won't do this, then you'd better find the 20% who do beat the S&P. Note that study after study show that 80% of brokers do not even break even -- then cannot beat the S&P index. That's exactly like saying they can't beat a monkey throwing darts at a board, or you spinning the Wheel of Fortune. Process that!
I prefer to manage my own IRA, and go for a global allocation, using index funds (by geography and asset class), and add some select and very targeted stocks and corporate bonds. In effect you'd be making your own "Mutual Fund". If you don't 'churn' the portfolio, the stock fees are fine.
But you need an IRA for that, if you live in the US. If you live in Canada, your pension plan (RSP) is independent of your employer anyway, and you have the freedom to pick from a huge palette that the Americans with their employer-linked 401k do not.
If you live in Canada take the tax-hit first, now, before taxes go up and use a TFSA, not RRSP account, since (for now) all gains are tax-free (conditions apply: if you own large controlling interest you aren’t tax-free on those holdings, e.g., board of directors, relative of one, etc.).
Screw it my wife and I manage our investments and we are doing well at it. We are moving the rest of my 401k over this year. We started investing in ourselves 20 years ago. The only reason I still have the 401k is it is required at work or it would be gone to our investment accounts.
If your young and have extra disposable income I would invest it yourself and you will be alot happier with the returns.
Taking responsibility for looking after our wealth was just the first step.
The real success came when we tuned out the commercials and authorities on the matter and took responsibility for our own health and nutrition. Corporate food and medicine like finance does not have anyone's best interests in mind but their own.
So how much coverage did they give to the fact that our economy has been a consumption based economy where cheap money and consumption of disposable "made in China" items diverted money from the savings of the people of the United States? I know auto workers who instead of saving all the jack they were making spent it on all kinds of toys and vices, lost their jobs and they have no idea why they're Shit out of Luck in a tree right now which is what I imagine most of the saps on this show portrayed. I'm going to listen to it in the background and if it's anything I'm surprised coming from PBS, your tax driven govt mouthpiece, I'll be shocked. Going to PBS for an assessment of the national situation is the equivalent to going to CNBC for financial advice. Spin.
I can't afford to have any contributions to a 401K eventually "Corzined". Fuck that.