In the bad old days of White Bread America, the dominant retirement savings model was the pension: your employer would take money that would otherwise be paid to you and invest it, then send you a check every month after you retire. Obviously, this lack of freedom is inferior to the modern diverse system in which you are given all sorts of options and incentives to invest your earnings in 401Ks and the like.
Except, under the modern mode, the diverse tend to spend their earnings right now.
From the Washington Post:
Many blacks and Latinos have no retirement savings, study shows
By Michael A. Fletcher,
Fewer than half of blacks and Latino workers have retirement plans on the job, leaving the vast majority of them with no savings designated for their golden years, according to a report to be released Tuesday.
Americans of all races face the growing prospect of downward mobility in retirement, the report said, but the problem is particularly acute for blacks and Hispanics.
More often than not, blacks and Latinos benefit little from the tax breaks and other policy initiatives aimed at bolstering retirement security because they typically have no money to save for retirement in IRAs and other vehicles outside the workplace, according to Diane Oakley, executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS), which conducted the study. In addition, they are much less likely than whites to have defined-benefit pensions, particularly outside of public sector jobs.
“Those are startling findings,” Oakley said. “The typical household of color has nothing saved in a retirement account.”
Meanwhile, a host of state and local governments have been cutting back on pension benefits for public employees, saying they cannot afford their long-term cost.
Such public employee pensions, which typically pay a fixed benefit for life, have been of particular help to African Americans, who make up a disproportionate share of government workers. ...
“One of the big issues here is a gap in access,” Oakley said. “We have what is essentially a voluntary retirement system and what we know is when we look at minority households, their access to retirement plans on the job is much less than that for whites.”
Liberty, equality, diversity: pick one.
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78 comments:
I think, Steve, you meant to say pick two. Like you can have liberty and diversity but it won't be equal, you can have diversity and equality but it won't be liberty, or you can have liberty and equality but it won't be diverse.
Given that the Government is going to confiscate retirement savings, why save?
however, they do benefit tremendously from the bush tax cuts, thanks to which most of them either pay no federal income tax, or pay at a low rate. so for 40 years or so, which is most of their adult lives, they will earn, and earn practically income tax free. it's nobody's fault but theirs if, after 40 years of low income tax earning, they have nothing to show for it. in fact, due to the way the federal income tax laws are written, the more kids they have, the more money the IRS gives them thanks to EITC.
obama fought tooth and nail to keep the bush tax cuts for the poor and middle class but somehow the republicans "only care about the rich."
Of course they don't! They grow up on welfare. (Don't they? I'll let you verify as an exercise--I'm a lazy latino.)
When my parents came to this country they were all sinew and work ethic. After decades of liberal handouts, they got soft in every way. My dad left, my mom went on welfare (now she's on disability and ssi).
I grew up on welfare and I'm still struggling, at 34, to feign some kind of future-orientation and build up retirement savings.
Liberals have no idea the long-term harm they're doing to American culture.
The tragedy is that families like mine come to this country because America was different, America was doing something right. And they almost all got duped into turning America into something resembling what they came here to escape.
Doesn't this really go back to the New Deal?
Liberty, equality, diversity: pick one.
I like this technique where you list a few, simple multi-culti buzzwords, and then surprise the audience by suggesting they are incompatible. I think it can be very effective. People like simple, easy to comprehend notions. And this is a form of ridicule which seems to be a very effective way to critique an opposing target.
Pat Buchanan often uses similar techniques. For example, he has stated that increasing diversity increases inequality.
I used that line on neighbor one day when he was complaining about the divide between rich and poor. At first he reacted like it was complete nonsense. But after he reasoned it through, you could tell a light went off in his head.
No worries for the profligate brown masses, President Spreadthewealth will just pivot to the Retirement Account Fairness Act and voilà!, 40% of your 401K will be redistributed to those who were unable to not spend every dollar they got their hands on. It's only fair.
Then we need a huge increase in H-1B visa scab labor, shamnesty for illegal imminvader-colonists, and massively increased legal & illegal immigration. That ought to wipe out the last of those pesky non-Government job pension plans!
Oops, sorry. For a moment there I mistook myself for a Republicrat stooge of the refugee-Diversity-Grievance industry racketeers and super-rich globalist capitalists and their Enemedia-Pravda shills.
The diagnosis that the problem is "access" means that the reason is racism. They will try to solve this access problem like they solved the mortgage problem. You remember, a few years ago, when whole categories of people had no access to mortgages.
"In addition, they are much less likely than whites to have defined-benefit pensions, particularly outside of public sector jobs."
That qualifying clause makes me question the accuracy of the first clause. Defined benefit pensions are extremely rare in the private sector, and blacks in particular are disproportionately represented in government employment.
There are two separate issues conflated in this post: the decline of defined benefit pension plans and the lack of savings of NAMs. The first issue has little to do with the decline of White Bread America.
Defined benefit pension plans were great for employees, particularly because they often had voluntary defined contribution plans in addition. That's still the case for many teachers and government workers, who have 403(B) or 457 plans (ed and public sector equivalents of 401(k) plans). Defined benefit plans ended up being bad for shareholders and ultimately taxpayers, because companies often hadn't funded them sufficiently (the funding gap was exacerbated by low interest rates), and when the companies went bust, the pension plans had to get bailed out by the government (via the PBGC). The PBGC is funded by premiums paid by companies with defined benefit pension plans, but to encourage companies to offer DB plans, the government set the premiums artificially low.
Where you do still see defined benefit plans in the private sector today is at small companies where they can be used as tax shelters by the owner/founders, who most likely won't have many employees stick around long enough to get vested.
In short, the decline of pensions in the private sector has little to do with diversity. The lack of savings among NAMs is a different issue.
John Rogers of Ariel Investments (Michele Obama's brother's former Princeton teammate) has advocated automatic enrollment of employees in 401(k) plans at fast food companies and the like as a way to increase NAM savings. But the other issue is NAMs cashing out any savings they might have before retirement. I once worked a temporary job as a financial planner for a consulting firm that handled calls from participants in a large state's retirement plans. This state would allow workers who were vested but had worked fewer than x years (I forget how many) to cash out their state-funded retirement plan. African American participants nearly always elected to do this, even after being told that they'd take a tax hit for doing so.
Impulsive people who think short-term can't be expected to save or invest on their own. But they can be entrusted with the responsibility of electing a Congress and President.
So let me get this straight, according to the Washington Post there are no Asian Americans, right? They aren't here and their numbers are in fact not increasing more than any other racial group in America?
Therefore no need to analyze their savings habits or retirement plans?
Good to know.
Anon @ 9:15
I think, Steve, you meant to say pick two. Like you can have liberty and diversity but it won't be equal, you can have diversity and equality but it won't be liberty, or you can have liberty and equality but it won't be diverse.
Yeah, that's what I thought as soon as I read that.
A few years back, the immigrationists that ran Britain, (ie that disgusting, depraved New Labour regime), claimed incessantly that massive, uncontrolled immigration was 'necessary' in order to 'maintain economic growth' and 'to fill gaps in the labor market'.
Of course after the grand financial f*ck-up, the UK economy tanked, and has been at death's door ever since. As an aside statistics released yesterday categorically state that the typical British worker has suffered the decline in living standards since reliable statistics were first gathered in the mid 1800s.
Anyway, now the immigrationists scream at every possible opportunity that mass immigration is 'needed' to 'pay for old age pensions'. If American evidence is anything to go by, it's likely that immigrants can't even fund *their own* pensions.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/nelson-mandela-a-candid-assessment
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals
"The prestige of appearing in the major journals has led the Chinese Academy of Sciences to pay successful authors the equivalent of $30,000 (£18,000). Some researchers made half of their income through such "bribes", Schekman said in an interview."
Any spare money I have goes into property because I don't trust Kiwisaver to pay out when I am old. But, there again, NZ is an earthquake zone.
Next month I am going to bite the bullet and sign up, but pensions are an exercise in long term trust and I remember what Gordon Brown did to my brother's UK pension.
Sometimes the grasshopper gets rewarded and the ant gets ripped off.
Given that the Government is going to confiscate retirement savings, why save?
How about saving gems, precious metals and other collectibles?
Therefore no need to analyze their savings habits or retirement plans?
Good to know.
It's because they are inconveniently located in all of the major metropolitan areas. I mean if the internet wasn't available, who would make the trek to give the survey?
Such public employee pensions, which typically pay a fixed benefit for life, have been of particular help to African Americans, who make up a disproportionate share of government workers. ...
Stealth reparations. Reduce government employment of Blacks to proportionate levels, and you'll put a serious dent in the black middle class, such as it is.
I've quoted P.J. O'Rourke's witticism here before (in 2010) but couldn't resist quoting it again: "Blacks have made very little economic progress since 8.45 this morning."
There does seem to be increasing chatter in the media narrative about pension savings being a problem. This could likely lead to yet another government money grab, this time being peoples savings.
Defined benefit plans ended up being bad for shareholders and ultimately taxpayers
No, defined benefit plans ended up being bad for Wall Street because it's much easier for Wall Street shysters to rip off millions of IRA, 401k and 403b contributors with usurious management fees, stupid investment ideas and other financial mumbo-jumbo than it is to rip off a few of their fellow classmates who run DB pension plans. That's the reason DB plans went bye-bye.
Oh yeah, I forgot that the same Wall St. shysters convinced employees they were much smarter managing money in their 401k than handing it over to some stodgy DB pension fund manager. In the end most of the real return on these 401ks ends up in the pockets of the plan sponsor and fund managers with the employee taking all the investment risk. It's the ultimate financial rip off.
http://youtu.be/oWVd-2pK1D0
Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Documentary Film Trailer
I wonder if this will be the government's smoke screen when they try to seize the IRAs this time and invest them in treasuries "for our own safety".
I think it is a mistake for many whites to take much comfort from the retirement statistics on whites.
Most of the people who are doing well financially in the US are white.
That does not mean that most whites are doing well financially.
We've lost millions of middle class jobs that I do not believe will be replaced.
A low income future seems to be in the cards for tens of millions of today's young white people.
Expecting low income people of any race to save $100,000 or more for retirement is unrealistic. If they can barely pay their bills, how are they going to save a couple of thousand dollars a year for 30 years?
In many ways, today's minority experience will be tomorrow's average American experience.
Even when whites and NAMs have the same jobs with the same incomes and the same available 40x-x plan, the NAMs are less likely to have and contribute.
Because, low future time orientation.
http://www.bigsoccer.com/soccer/david-bolt/2013/12/09/six-arrested-over-spot-fixing-in-english-football/
6 players arrested in Englend in match-fixing scandal. All of them black or mulatto.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1205/490993-libya-sharia/
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2013/december/04/libyan-leaders-give-mccain-award,-vote-in-sharia-law.aspx
Libyan National Assembly decided to adopt sharia law.
John McCain honored by award from Libyan military Chief of Staff.
If Paul Walker had a DB pension plan he would be with us today. Paul was killed in a car crash with his Merrill Lynch financial advisor behind the wheel. Kinda epitomizes many of our financial futures.
Ive been going through Steve's articles fleshing out citizenism, and I cant seem to find a line that he once wrote that I remember reading a while back. It was a response to cheap labor proponents, along the lines that one should care about your fellow citizens, because theyre the ones you expect to fight with you and for you when things go to hell. Except the wording was more Sailerish and poignant.
If anyone can find what Im talking about, Id really appreciate it. My google-fu is not as good as I thought it was, and Im wondering if Im just imagining the whole thing.
"In the end most of the real return on these 401ks ends up in the pockets of the plan sponsor and fund managers with the employee taking all the investment risk."
This is the most useful comment I've seen here in weeks. It's not just dumb blacks and Mexicans getting the shaft from these 401k plans. Go home and check the fee load on your 401k. Unless you work for the federal government or some giant multinational, here’s what happens:
The financial services firm offering to provide the plan to the company might charge 0.5 percent a year of plan assets for the machinery of the plan. The plan offers a menu of mutual fund choices. The majority of those choices are managed funds. The managed funds, in turn, may have an expense ratio of 1.5 percent that includes a 0.2 percent 12b-1 charge.
The 12(b)-1 charge is credited against the financial services firm’s 0.5 percent charge. This makes them look like heroes of cost saving. In fact, they’re still getting paid 0.50 percent. More important, the choice of the managed fund adds a net cost of 1.3 percent. So the all-in cost is 1.8 percent. This makes the plan expensive, but the funds have been “screened” by the financial services firm offering the plan for their “good management.”
What’s the alternative?
Offer the plan at a charge of 0.5 percent, but provide a rich selection of low-cost index funds. It is now possible for the average Joe to manage IRA investments for less than 0.20 percent. So we ought to be able to have 401(k) plans, even small 401(k) plans, that cost no more than 0.7 percent.
Note the cost difference. About 1.1 percent a year. And you’ll pay that for as long as you save and are employed, simply because your plan is part of the conspiracy of failure.
Oh, by the way, a 30-year inflation indexed government bond yields less than 1.7%. So these plans are handing you the investment risk and keeping most of the yield for themselves. The only way these plans are anything other than criminal is if the employer has a decent contribution match, then they may be worth participating in. Otherwise, don't contribute and save in a personal IRA instead.
Anon #1: I think, Steve, you meant to say pick two. Like you can have liberty and diversity but it won't be equal, you can have diversity and equality but it won't be liberty, or you can have liberty and equality but it won't be diverse.
Anon #2: Yeah, that's what I thought as soon as I read that.
Except that it drives home the point that multi-culti diversity is so horrible that you don't even get two choices anymore.
You only get one choice now.
***************
Theodore Dalrymple described it with words thusly:
"I saw the revolt against civilization and the restraints and frustrations it entails in many countries, but nowhere more starkly than in Liberia in the midst of the civil war there. I arrived in Monrovia... in a building called the Centennial Hall, where the inauguration ceremonies of the presidents of Liberia took place. The hall was empty now, except for the busts of former presidents, some of them overturned, around the walls—and a Steinway grand piano, probably the only instrument of its kind in the entire country, two-thirds of the way into the hall. The piano, however, was not intact: its legs had been sawed off (though they were by design removable) and the body of the piano laid on the ground, like a stranded whale. Around it were disposed not only the sawed-off legs, but little piles of human feces.
I had never seen a more graphic rejection of human refinement. I tried to imagine other possible meanings of the scene but could not. Of course, the piano represented a culture that was not fully Liberia's own and had not been assimilated fully by everyone in the country: but that the piano represented not just a particular culture but the very idea of civilization itself was obvious in the very coarseness of the gesture of contempt."
***************
And here it is in pictures:
DETROIT PUBLIC LIBRARY, MARK TWAIN BRANCH
There does seem to be increasing chatter in the media narrative about pension savings being a problem. This could likely lead to yet another government money grab, this time being peoples savings.
Bingo. The media is setting up the narrative the government will use as an excuse to grab another source of money.
I remember him saying that, but not here. It was in a comment on a Bryan Caplan post over at econlog.
“The financial services firm offering to provide the plan to the company might charge 0.5 percent a year of plan assets for the machinery of the plan…The managed funds...may have an expense ratio of 1.5 percent that includes a 0.2 percent 12b-1 charge.”
The cost for the “machinery of the plan” is usually per-head, not a percentage of plan assets. Further, 1.5% for a mutual fund expense ratio is exorbitant. Most funds offered in DC plans have expense ratios, even with the 12b-1 fee, of less than 1%. Your later example of 1.8% “all-in” is similarly an outlier and you likely chose it for the same reason you said “may have…1.5% above”: to be intentionally misleading.
“The 12(b)-1 charge is credited against the financial services firm’s 0.5 percent charge…”
The 12b-1 fee usually goes back to the service provider (“record keeper”) to offset record-keeping expenses. These expenses are significant and on a per-employee basis vary inversely with the number of employees in the plan. Record-keeping is a low-margin data processing business. The firms that do it as part of their core business (e.g. ADP) manage it as such – low frills, keep staff down, steer employees to websites and away from toll-free numbers, etc. The mutual fund companies that offer record-keeping (Fidelity is far and away the market leader) do it as a loss-leader to suck assets into their funds.
“Offer the plan at a charge of 0.5 percent, but provide a rich selection of low-cost index funds. It is now possible for the average Joe to manage IRA investments for less than 0.20 percent. So we ought to be able to have 401(k) plans, even small 401(k) plans, that cost no more than 0.7 percent.”
You are correct that passive (index) funds are almost always a superior investment option to actively managed funds. However in your above example you assume that record-keeping expenses do not exist. Much of the costs are mandated by the IRS and Department of Labor – all sorts of discrimination tests designed to ensure that the executives aren’t being subsidized by the worker bees for example. Assuming an employee is paid every two weeks, come pay day they have asked that some percentage of their pre-tax pay be set aside and invested in 1-4 mutual funds on average. There is a cost to setting aside that money, piling it into omnibus accounts, wiring it to mutual fund companies, keeping track of the cost basis and other information associated with it, answering ongoing questions, and mailing out quarterly statements. Reasonable people can argue about whether the costs should be higher or lower, but almost 30 years of data says that record-keeping is a very low-margin business, typically 3% or less. As such, expecting the costs to be meaningfully lower is fantasy.
The people making a lot of money in the 401(k) game are the asset managers. Same as when retirement money was mostly in DB plans. You can argue that asset managers should charge less (I believe they should) but that is a different argument.
“The only way these plans are anything other than criminal is if the employer has a decent contribution match, then they may be worth participating in. Otherwise, don't contribute and save in a personal IRA instead.”
Except for that DC plans allow an employee to set aside $17,500 in pre-tax income. With an IRA you’re allowed to set aside $5,500 (more if you’re older than 50). That $12,000 annually over a working career and compounded is a huge difference.
This is the most useful comment I've seen here in weeks. It's not just dumb blacks and Mexicans getting the shaft from these 401k plans. Go home and check the fee load on your 401k. Unless you work for the federal government or some giant multinational, here’s what happens...
You know, I always felt that Reagan allowing almost all of the retirement savings of ordinary Americans to be forced through economic choke point of Wall Street thievery [so that the Wall Street crooks could invoke rent extraction upon the flow of savings] was possibly the single greatest mistake that Reagan ever made in his life.
But I just googled the history of it:
401(k) IRA, 1978, CARTER ADMINISTRATION
Roth IRA, 1997, CLINTON ADMINISTRATION
So all of this forced rent extraction is a purely DEM scam.
I guess I should have had more faith in The Gipper.
In my job for a social services agency I have to review the incomes and assets of recipients for their annual recertifications for benefits. Blacks rarely have their paperwork complete or on time. Asians always come early for the appointments, have their papers completely filled out even if they don't speak a word of English (they get younger relatives to help or pay the lady at the Chinese bank) and always have a savings account, even if there's only a hundred and ten dollars in it. Time orientation is very deep.
Let's eliminate the gap in access to information about Obama!
I suspect that the push for 401k plans was engineered by Wall Street, in order to insure a steady influx of money into the stock market so as to prop up its value.
I consider my retirement fund to be ficticious, and I expect the government to plunder it someday. If you are not permitted to decide what to spend your money on, then it is not really your money.
"Libertarian Realist said...
Impulsive people who think short-term can't be expected to save or invest on their own. But they can be entrusted with the responsibility of electing a Congress and President."
An excellent observation.
Sense of insecurity is the motivation hehind all my wealth buiding behavior.
You feel so good about yourself. You are more likely a poor.
“'One of the big issues here is a gap in access,' Oakley said. 'We have what is essentially a voluntary retirement system and what we know is when we look at minority households, their access to retirement plans on the job is much less than that for whites.'"
Oh, my. Another gap. This is exactly why I opposed the Republicans' idea to privatize Social Security. Sure, some people might invest their money and get a better return than thry'd get in our current SS system, but many undoubtedly wouldn't. Plus, what would happen to people who retire when the market is down? Then the government would undoubtedly be called upon to step in to help the people whose Social Security savings were not adequate for their retirement or significantly below projected values. The whole plan seemed like a recipe for disaster.
"Given that the Government is going to confiscate retirement savings, why save?"
This. (Did I do that right?)
This idea has already been floated a number of times by the current regime, and whenever commutards even so much as publicly whisper these sorts of tyrannical ideas, it won't belong before they start implementing them. And since there will be all Democrapic presidents and Democrapic Senate majorities until the official end of the republic, along with an ever-increasing percentage of the House a Representin' going Democrap, we can expect confiscation of whitepeople's future-orientation to begin with a decade.
No wonder Blacks vote overwhelming for Democrats. Also, the Republicans made the mistake starting with Reagan that 40k's could be invested and make big money at retirement. I've done them and IRa's too and I'm glad that I did. As for not paying taxes liberals claim that poor people while not paying federal taxes pay more tax states since they are more heavy on sales and property. If you are a poor Mexican in California you pay less taxes than Texas since Texas doesn't have a state income tax and taxes are weight heavier on property and sales tax.
I grew up on welfare and I'm still struggling, at 34, to feign some kind of future-orientation and build up retirement savings.
Yeah but some Republican states in the deep south have more people on welfare than liberal states because they have more poor rural blacks. I use to think like you do just cut welfare and people will leave welfare this is not true in let's say the Rio Grande Region of Texas they still have 40 percent of the population on food stamps while let's say moderate liberal San Diego only has about 6 percent on food stamps. A bad job market not just having welfare or not is a factor as well.
grew up on welfare and I'm still struggling, at 34, to feign some kind of future-orientation and build up retirement savings.
This is another reason some of the Republicans were jealous of Blue states. In California until the current recession messed, whites were historically less on the dole than let's say in Arkansas and probably still are less on the dole, most of Calif welfare is second and third generation Mexicans. Most Republican states don't live up to pulling by your boot strips, Texas does when it comeas to the WHite Population but not the hispanic so its folloisng the cosnevative philopshy better than Kentucky, West Vrignian or Arkansas.
I have always advocated defined benefit (DB) pension plans since both the employer and the pension fund manager have skin in the game and can provide checks and balances on each other. There is evidence that executives prefer DB plans for themselves because they are realistic in their self-assessments of their own personal investment management skills. Deloitte has found that DC Plans (401k) help attract young recruits and DB Plans (traditional pension) help retain experienced talent. Who at an accounting firm do you think knows more about how the world of investing works, young recruits or experienced staff?
The photos of the Detroit public library are chilling.
It's not that illogical. Social Security is much more progressive (in terms of income replacement) for low income earners (even taking into account mortality differences.)
Gideon Rachman's column in the FT today (Rachman is the exemplar of the Global, Left elite and a "journalist"):
"Even defenders of globalization now usually acknowledge that the emergence of a global labor force has helped hold down wages in the West. Some European friends of mine daydream that protectionism -- or even a war in Asia -- could send more well-paid jobs back to the West. But in reality, globalization seems unlikely ever to really go into reverse, given the technological, economic, and political forces pushing it forwards. It would certainly be morally dubious to attempt to bolster western living standards by undermining an economic trend that has dragged millions out of poverty in the developing world"
There you have it. Moral emphasis on Third Worlders over native, fellow White, Westerners. Rachman is from Cambridge, the BBC, the Economist, etc. He like pretty much 100% of the FT and the entire Western global elite are in thrall to the Crystal Meth of religions: Multiculturalism and PC. Original Sin has been replaced by Original Sin of Whiteness, God by Black/Brown people who act as magical martyred redeemers. Instead of accepting Jesus as one's savior you accept Barack Obama or Nelson Mandela. And you pointedly put Third World peoples above your own. [See the family of Amy Biehl.]
This is a powerful post-Christian religion taking the form of Catharism (rejection of the material world as wicked and the creation of Satan, focusing in the utopia of Heaven and the spiritual world). Unfortunately we have no Innocent III. But the religion is faltering because only the hope of being an elite can make one adopt it; foreclose hope and growth in the religion dies. Moreover the built in hypocrisy of belief (Third World > Westerners) and action (avoiding like the plague Third Worlders in real life) is high.
"Liberty, Equality, Diversity. Pick one."
Genius.
Wall Street manages the assets of defined benefit pension plans too, so no.
@anon
And here it is in pictures: http://detroitfunk.com/?p=5116
That is truly a terrible commentary.
"but the problem is particularly acute for blacks and Hispanics"
Minorities hit hardest, as the NYT always says.
>Steve, you meant to say pick two.<
At first I thought so too. But then I re-read it very carefully... "pick one" actually makes more sense. (Re-read it and see for yourself.)
This is another example of privatized profits and socialized costs. Employers get to import cheap labor, and what their wages and benefits don't pay for, the taxpayer must provide--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, various local and state programs, etc.
It's one thing for blacks, for whom we're on the hook one way or another. But the Latino Pension Gap is yet another problem foisted gratuitously upon the public by self-interested employers.
It would be nice if a Republican candidate came along who understands that there is nothing "pro-market" about allowing business to externalize costs of policies from which they benefit.
That kind of conservative populism would actually win elections, so we can be sure the GOP won't embrace it. Honestly, the corruption aspect is more forgivable than the sheer stupidity of it.
At mandelas funeral:
http://snaphanen.dk/2013/12/10/narcissisterne-til-mindegudstjeneste-for-mandela/
Michelle Obamas face is priceless... The Danish PM (social democrat) a disgrace.
The Senate has a plan to flood America with 100 million mostly third-world people in 30 years - if you're youngish retirement funds are going to be the least of your problems. What sort of government do you think will be voted in by these leeches, and what sort of economic policy will it have?
P.S. - You can't have diversity and liberty, full stop, and the actions of the U.S. government since the 1960s has proven that. From losing States Rights to losing freedom of association to getting molested at the airport to the NSA and a thousand others, all done in the attempt to make "diversity" work.
"More often than not, blacks and Latinos benefit little from the tax breaks and other policy initiatives aimed at bolstering retirement security because they typically have no money to save for retirement in IRAs and other vehicles outside the workplace, according to Diane Oakley, executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS), which conducted the study. In addition, they are much less likely than whites to have defined-benefit pensions, particularly outside of public sector jobs."
Which is why we need single payer gov't healthcare so that there can be more diverse folks working for the benevolent (to them) dictabureaucracy.
worth repeating:
So let me get this straight, according to the Washington Post there are no Asian Americans, right? They aren't here and their numbers are in fact not increasing more than any other racial group in America?
Big Companies: "Let's save money by shifting our employees from DB to DC."
"Waaaah, we can't hire anyone because they leave after they gain skills."
Anonymous 1 is right: in my labor econ student days, we were taught that you can have two of the three aspects of income redistribution, but not all three:
adequacy
equity
efficiency
Now that we've done our Latino-bashing for the day, let me ask you guys if any of you are up for snow season?
There are ample jobs upstate NY for brawny boys with snow removal and landscaping experience.
See:
http://tinyurl.com/njece6s
Something tells me that most of the guys who answer these ads are Latino, or white Americans who employ Latinos.
Ditto for scrap hauling.
I've never understood why people who pay attorneys and cpas quite high fees to provide a service are somehow incensed to pay for someone to manage their investments.
It amuses me that people who have no problem paying fees to professionals like cpas and attorneys or even auto mechanics, somehow are indignant that the people managing their investments actually expect to be paid as well.
Gideon Rachman...
...post-Christian religion
You know there's something very wrong with you, right?
They were brought here as cheap labor, not to make enough money to sock away savings for retirement. It is one more example of the capitalist policy of shifting costs to the general public.
They measure if stress brings cognitive impairment??
Paul Ryan and all politicians who support amnesty should be required to forfeit the retirement benefits to the underclass they plan to legalize.
Looks like our golden years and going to be full of peace and joy with kindly ladies from the tropics caring for us with love and devotion.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2521519/The-nurses-guilty-misconduct-care-home-pictured-slammed.html
Liberty has almost become a dirty word for our leftist rulers and is more or less dead as an ideal they support, freedom today means being able to vote, not much more than that.
So it comes down to diversity and equality, these seemingly contradictory words are not if one understands the mindset of many liberals. I have had conversations with some liberals about this, the consensus is that they don't really mind if there is a huge rich/poor gap, as long as each class has the same racial composition then that qualifies as diversity and equality.
Steve,
Not too long ago, you wrote a few posts rightly mocking Tyler Cowen's advice to the increasingly impoverished to eat more beans.
Well it turns out that Cowen is even more beyond parody than we thought:
http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-toady-class-on-average-is-over/
"What most concerns the discussants, including McArdle, William Galston, Jonathan Rauch, and Brink Lindsey, are the social implications of losing the middle class. (Hanson comments on this focus.) Tyler insists that societies will not fracture, nor will redistributionist demagogues take power. Factors favoring stability include aging, surveillance technology, the skill of the rich at controlling the political environment, nativism, NIMBYism, and the basic comfort achieved by the lower class. He points out that Britain and Germany are farther along than the U.S. in the growth of the new lower class, and their societies appear to be stable–Merkel just won re-election by a wide margin.
Tyler says that in the long run mood-altering drugs may be a solution."
There you have it. Moral emphasis on Third Worlders over native, fellow White, Westerners. Rachman is from Cambridge, the BBC, the Economist, etc. He like pretty much 100% of the FT and the entire Western global elite are in thrall to the Crystal Meth of religions: Multiculturalism and PC. Original Sin has been replaced by Original Sin of Whiteness, God by Black/Brown people who act as magical martyred redeemers. Instead of accepting Jesus as one's savior you accept Barack Obama or Nelson Mandela. And you pointedly put Third World peoples above your own. [See the family of Amy Biehl.]
This is hilarious. You have just given more ammunition to your opponents. Check out Gideon Rachman's wiki page.
Note: you will need to scroll to the bottom to look at the "categories" section IYKWIM.
Obama + White Women
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-10/tuesday-unhumor-selfies-funeral
Its as if Steve is a modern day nostradamus, condiersing Steve's prior references to Obama's love of white women. Or maybe Steve is good at noticing patterns
Stealth reparations. Reduce government employment of Blacks to proportionate levels, and you'll put a serious dent in the black middle class, such as it is.
The guy that runs SBPDL often writes that the black middle class is an artificial creation and would collapse overnight without government jobs and government mandates on the private sector to employ them.
I've never understood why people who pay attorneys and cpas quite high fees to provide a service are somehow incensed to pay for someone to manage their investments.
Because it's been demonstrated over and over again that the majority of fund managers can't beat a passive benchmark. I wouldn't pay a CPA or attorney if most of them couldn't demonstrate the ability to add value over doing the work myself.
He points out that Britain and Germany are farther along than the U.S. in the growth of the new lower class....
Germany? Say what?
Many commenters have mentioned (appropriately) a lack of a future orientation as a reason that most blacks and Hispanics don't save for their retirement.
Alas none seem to have taken the next step to explain why this should be so. OK. I guess I'll have to do it.
It's simple brain functioning. Blacks, it's clear have smaller pre-frontal lobes, and these are the structures that potentiate a future orientation.
This isn't a secret although it is a taboo. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_for_the_future
The import of all the fMRI studies is that it will not be 'fixed' with a few courses in financial management. Blacks will always, by virtue of their fundamental brain anatomy, be worse at planning for the future. They will always be less independent than whites or Asians.
Albertosaurus
OT.
I'm not naive enough to believe this is anything other than a one-off, an aberration, and certainly not the basis for future economic/immigration policy here, but today a British government minister came out with a fairly remarkable comment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25321113
Fill vacancies by offering locals better wages, rather than opening the borders to ever more cheap foreign labourers. Heresy!
London resident - the spectre of UKIP is haunting the Government. They see "the economy improving" (GDP up, employment up, wages falling, executive pay up), yet this doesn't show up in the polls.
Simultaneously they're also thinking of reducing the top rate of tax (45% for those over £150K) to 40%, which is currently the level paid on wages over £40K. They must still be suicidal.
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