You are not wrong in any of this.
It amazes me that the DB system has dried up in almost every sector and the claim was that it cost too much to maintain. But those dollars didn’t go away. They were just shifted into executive compensation in bonuses and shares.
Funny how the decision makers felt paying a pension to a line or office worker was too much to bear. But paying out golden parachutes and tens of millions to themselves wasn’t.
This is the point that really bothers me when we see articles predicting another recession or trying to get people to jump because of a market swing of a few hundred points. Are the writers and publishers involved really trying to create more bargains for the 10% by convincing the sheeple to panic and sell?
Most people don’t have full control of their investments, they’re controlled by corporations. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 401k that listed index funds as an option. You just have to pick from what they offer.
Eventually I saved up enough surplus to put a little bit into a separate index fund investment account that I control instead of the company, but I can’t afford to add to it often and most people can’t afford to even do that in the first place.
feverish, tubercular bloom
Nice one. Makes me envision Greta Garbo in Camille, eyes aglitter, coughing a little blood into a lace handkerchief, but covered in algae.
@doctorow should be more careful what he wishes for. It reminds me of this:
With predictably resulted in:
yes in case i wasn’t clear, you get multiple funds to match a risk profile. i’d agree if you’re risk/agressive you can make more,m but if you want a steady 5% you can count on I think an 80/20 mix of stock and bond etfs is a good call
yeah this is what sucks. good employers use vanguard but they;'re rare. with the bad ones i’d often use an IRA since I was making so little I couldn’t afford to save mnore than 5500 (the contrib limit)
I don’t think that the Hudson River thinks that GE is a green company.
i’m just like that except I’m 90% CDs and the rest is in cassette.
Wait. Don’t private pension funds also own stocks? And what about government pension funds like CALPERS? Indirectly, many more people own stocks, right?
Even if pensions and retirement funds own more than the ~20% of us stock from what I can see, the situation is still shit.
The bottom 90 percent of households accounted for only 35 percent of the value of all pension accounts, according to Wolff’s research. The top 10 percent own the rest.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/09/01/fact-checking-gary-cohns-claims-on-pensions.html
ETA welcome to boingboing, comrade
If you go by income, to qualify for the top 10% you need to earn about $118k, which is a lot, but not super-rich lot. (To qualify for the famous one percent, you need to earn $719k.) Source: Investopedia
For wealth, top 10% in 2017 was $1.18 million; top 1% was $10.73 million. (Source: here)
Wealth is more concentrated towards the top than income.
Political movements which start out with the intent of wiping out the rich usually wind up targeting the “kulaks” and small businessmen before too very long. I’m not aware of any significant example to the contrary.
Suppose that we lived in a country where stock ownership was more equitably distributed, where, say, 80 percent of stocks were owned by the richest 55 percent. What effects would that have on corporate governance and the economy as a whole? I’m curious.
I’d generally agree with this - assuming one still has a fair amount of time left before retirement - but would add an equally important thing which is dollar cost averaging. That is imperative in long term investing. Thankfully, one is doing that by default with a 401k through work if that’s available.
Here in the UK our left-wing party commissioned a report which has just suggested that executive pay should be at least partially determined by the customers of the company, rather than the shareholders (or, worse, the non-executive directors who all sit on each others’ remuneration committees.) Obviously, this idea will never happen - but it does show that there are folk still trying to explore reasonably innovative ideas.
And regrettably, the majority of the middle class appear to prefer maintaining the housing crisis to addressing inequality.
Citation required.
Most people are not middle class property owners.
Especially when you have $3-million-plus in investable assets. It’s not “f*ck-you money”, but at that point you don’t have to lift a finger to stay in the top 10%.
I wonder what percentage of stock offering companies are actually losing money, I found this from 4 years ago https://www.businessinsider.com/percentage-of-stocks-losing-money-2014-9?r=US&IR=T&IR=T which as I read it in the U.S and Europe it’s uh, 25% of companies are losing money.
I wonder if there is a difference in ownership of losing companies and succeeding companies.
Not that I will ever find out of course, the last time I tried to screw with the ruling class I ended up at some freaky party where rich folks wore gaudy masks and had really lousy sex but with attractive supermodel types whom, evidently are the only type of female body the super-rich find attractive. Someone so rich, and so incapable of enjoying their wealth, is not someone to mess with because they are bound to be in a bad mood is what I’m saying.
