Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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People are human and life is hard (especially in the US, unnecessarily so). Good policy understands this, and protects the human while not overly encumbering business. This regulation is entirely reasonable based on the data [1] with regards to costs incurred.

This is the same reason 401ks will be gone soon [2]; we told a lie that pensions were untenable, foisted the responsibility on humans (who laughably were expected to be able to be sophisticated with regards to these matters, contrary to the evidence [3]), and now we have an entire cohort moving through 55+ to death who have little to no retirement savings to speak of [4]. Because policy failed them, and all those previous pension contributions went to shareholders instead. We don't have to argue this here, but it is to demonstrate systemic failures.

But see, we can make better policy. It is easy, and it scales (versus unrealistic expectations of the human). We outlaw the predatory behavior.

[1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-repor...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-02-20/retire... | https://archive.today/jdfPv

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/19/heres-how-much-people-say-la...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39578810 (citations)

I doubt 401ks are going anywhere. It’s one thing to write an article about it and a whole other to actually get a law passed. Congress can’t even get rid of daylight savings time, which no one likes.

Every 2 year election cycle, ~3.6M voters over 55 will have aged out, and 8M voters will have turned 18. Today's Congress is not tomorrow's Congress, but I admit patience will be required as the electorate and the reps elected turn over.

The missing bit though is that those 401ks are taxed later than now. A politician who wants to pay for their policy (good) but doesn't want to raise taxes (bad) can just move the timings of that tax bill to juice the books. Its been proposed in the past, along with the implications of changing the RMDs to boost government income.

If blowback is preventing politicians from raising taxes why wouldn’t blowback stop them from killing the 401k?

I'm so confused about how, on the one hand, I keep seeing articles about the enormous wealth transfer that's expected to happen, but at the same time, articles saying retirees don't have any money. Which is it?

Pretty much the only thing I would definitely trust less than any random individual on the street to manage savings well for retirement would be government. I don't know who or what should do it instead when people aren't working more than a few years at any given company, but it sure as hell shouldn't be government.

> I'm so confused about how, on the one hand, I keep seeing articles about the enormous wealth transfer that's expected to happen, but at the same time, articles saying retirees don't have any money. Which is it?

This is sort of silly? Older generation estates and owners have to pass their wealth down to somewhere, either their children or other causes. Concentrated wealth via ultra high net worth estates is moving between generations [1] [2], it's not being spread like butter across everyone.

> Pretty much the only thing I would definitely trust less than any random individual on the street to manage savings well for retirement would be government. I don't know who or what should do it instead when people aren't working more than a few years at any given company, but it sure as hell shouldn't be government.

Social Security is one of the most efficient benefits systems in the country, and expenses are less than private annuities (~0.5%) [3]. It is entirely possible to create effective pension management systems besides what the US has today [4]. We have made a choice not to. We could make better choices.

“You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.” ― Churchill

[1] https://content.knightfrank.com/resources/knightfrank.com/we... ("Knight Frank 2024 Wealth Report")

[2] https://ustrustaem.fs.ml.com/content/dam/ust/articles/pdf/20... (2022 Bank of America Private Bank Study of Wealthy Americans: The impact of shifting generational attitudes amid an historic wealth transfer) [Only 27% of the ultra wealthy are self made; 70% of Americans who hold more than $3 million are over 56 years old.]

[3] https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-top-ten-facts-ab... ("Policy Basics: Top Ten Facts about Social Security")

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/13/these-countries-have-the-bes... ("These countries have the best pension systems in 2022—and the U.S. didn’t make the list")

Weird, because as I understand it, government intervention is the only way an appreciable amount of people ever had retirement savings

The government basically invented the notion of "retirement" in the first place, too, though. There was no historical precedent for just stopping working before you physically couldn't anymore, in which case you generally died very shortly thereafter.

At the time U.S. social security was invented, the age at which you could draw benefits was higher than the average life expectancy, the thought being, "Well you've put in as much good work time as most people do when they die, so if you live longer than that, we'll take care of you."

This whole notion of a decade or more of "retirement" being totally normal is extremely novel, and I'm not at all sure it's good for people. Is it good not to have to do physically demanding work when you're 70? Sure. But as a culture, we would benefit an awful lot from learning from elders in advisory roles, if we didn't idolize the innovative flash-in-the-pan-probably-won't-work-but-let's-try-it-anyway startup mentality.

Both. The average net worth of retired Americans is over $1million. But the median net worth is ~$200,000 (according to recently released data from the Federal Reserve).

I'm not familiar with the articles but where I live it wouldn't be surprising for an elderly person to have a million dollar home and not much free cash, since they bought and paid it off decades ago. So that is 'wealth' but not easily accessible as 'money'.

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