Should Feds Rescue Retirement System, Too?

Although those percentages seem out of place, the actual income draw for those unfortunate enough to be in the bottom three-fifths the EBRI's chart does not give them a living income. Many have never had the benefit of a pension, participation in any tax-deferred accounts or had the ability to save extra income.

True, Social Security was not meant to pay more than 40% of anyone's income. It was meant to keep retirees from falling into poverty. A nation with too many poor does not move - it stagnates.

The downside of a service economy is the low pay many in the service sector receive, the unreliability of the sector to provide a steady stream of income throughout all economic scenarios, and inability to move with ease from one career (not job) to another without incurring great financial hardship.

We can be thankful that SS was never privatized. We can be hopeful that the stock market will return - which given enough time, it should. We can be prudent in the future and skeptical about the promises of retirement.

The essence of a plan is planning for disaster. At what point did that change to ignoring the possibility that something bad could happen?

BlueCollarDollar.com of OR 7:34AM November 03, 2008

This argument that the federal government should guarantee 401(k)s is patently ridiculous. However, I sense that during the last few months the people who call for responsibility in government spending are losing to those who would have the government spend money like a drunken sailor. Keynes, yes, called for the government to prime the pump during times like these. The problem is that the federal government has been running huge deficits even in good times. In 1981, the federal debt was $1 trillion. Now, it's $10 trillion and growing by leaps and bounds. We had an expensive economic stimulus earlier in the year, we've had the bailout bill ($700B + $140B), and now there's serious talk of another economic stimulus. It seems that this economy cannot survive without periodic economic stimului. Yet, at the same time, there are calls for people to plan (i.e., save) for their retirements. On CNN, you can now hear talk that the debt doesn't matter because everybody wants our bonds and our dollars. Right now, the dollar is being boosted by massive deleveraging of foreign investments, creating an articial and short-run temporary for dollars. After that process runs its course, watch out for inflation - big time.

Gene Seiler of TX 12:40PM November 01, 2008

Do the people exist to serve the government, or is the great American experiment really a government that serves the people?

A government that exists to serve the people would secure the blessings of liberty and provide for the general welfare.

Providing for the general welfare would be maintaining a secure envoronment for the people to pursue the American dream.

Pursuing the American dream would mean maintaining one's health and obtaining the education necessary to achieve the dream.

To provide security, health, education--yes, and deliver the mail--the people's money should be managed prudently.

This is one glaring area where the people's government has failed miserably.

United we stand. There is strength in numbers.

The government insurance that government employees enjoy is affordable because it includes everybody employed by the government. The numbers are huge.

The numbers include all the young and healthy people that far outnumber the old and infirm.

Therefore, the cost is spread so that the most costly health care for the few is paid for my the many that do not require that most costly care.

Despite all the headlines about the baby boomers retiring and becoming a burden on the young, the young will always out number the old.

That's the way nature works.

HillbillyBill of TN 8:09AM November 01, 2008