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Comment by sovietmudkipz | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if they’ll also start paying a market price for skilled labor.

Fully loaded, government wages aren't as bad as they seem on on paper. Price out an annuity from an insurance company with payouts equal to a government pension. The quote might be above $2M.

If you don’t mind working for the same employer for 30 years, living wherever they tell you to live. Hard pass.

If you contribute the max to a 401k for 30 years you should have around 2 million (and don't put everything into stupid investments, which many 401ks make hard). But that is $20k/year that doesn't go into your wallet. Of course inflation needs to factor in - 30 years ago your max contribute was about half of today ($9,240.00 vs $23,500.00) and so your expected result would have been more like 1 million. But if you contributed the max for all those 30 years you are probably close to 2 million. If you start today for 30 years you should be quite a bit more than 2 million - but how much I cannot predict. I'm assuming above that you get an employer match which most do.

The above assumes you have a 401k. Those plans are more available than any previous retirement option (other than social security which nearly everyone has and is mandatory). However even though 401k is available to more people than previous workplace retirement plans, there are still large numbers who don't get a 401k (someone who can have one but chooses not to is also an issue).

The above is US centric. Many people reading this don't live in the US and so have completely different options that I have no idea about.

They do for every filled job.

But wasn't DOGE created to eliminate some of those jobs? In which case, the question becomes: Will supply be willing to show up for the market price, which may soon become zero or even negative?

Gotta give it to DOGE, which already eliminated Co-founder/CO-CEO and its top lawyer. They seem to be walking the talk. But I'd consider it totally serious if Musk's position is eliminated in before his kids move to next grade mainly due to not meeting targets or missing 5 days a week at work mandate.

Yes, but the plot twist is that they can and likely will ship in more H1Bs than ever to push down the market price for skilled labor.

Sadly not, the pay scales can’t be changed without congressional approval.

But that pension is nice.

Doesn’t compete with compound interest on lower initial salaries. But it’s a sweet mid career backup if you’ve already messed things up.

Pensions compete with self-directed retirement in the same way that a salary competes with founding your own business: they take all the risk and all the mental effort and give you something you can (mostly) rely on without any added effort, in exchange for a smaller return than is technically possible if you took the risk and planning effort yourself.

Some people would definitely be better off managing their own retirement, but just due to the way these things work my bet is about half of all people (the left of the bell curve) would be better off with a pension.

Pensions are also risky when you’re young because so much of their value depends on the final salary. Leave a job young without those promotions and 5 years of service can mean almost nothing 30+ years later in retirement.

Where you sit on that bell curve isn’t obvious at age 20, but it’s much clearer at age 40. Benefiting people who have already messed things up and swap.

Thus that single binary choice after college is likely suboptimal.

When my dad started work in the 1970s he only had a pension which he - like most his age - didn't bother participating in. He latter got old enough to realize that he should save (probably when a new job offered a 401k with match) and regretted it so much he looked things up. Turns out that if he joined until that company laid him off he would get $0.75/month from the pension once he turned 65. In short a stupid investment. Those who were older like you say did much better.

there is one big advantage of a pension: you cannot outlive them. If you die at 65 (as my dad did) bad luck, but if you live to 109 you still get that income to live on.

Assuming the entity paying the pension has the cash. Not a problem for the federal government, obviously, but for other governments, and especially non government entities, running out of cash is a possibility.

Another risk is not having it be sufficiently inflation adjusted. An investment in SP500, however, would protect you from declines in the currency’s purchasing power.

Most pensions since the 1970s or prehaps before are government insured in the us. But my family has stories of the relative who worked for a company for decades the company sent bankrupt when he was 60 and the pension was invested in the now worthless company stock.

the above is why I tend to oppose employee owned conpanies. Too much risk for the common man to have so much net worth in their job.

Even insured, they constantly require bailouts by federal Congress because PBGC can’t handle the load, depending on the political influence of the group being bailed out.

Auto manufacturing, teamsters, coal miners, etc. Only question is how much pull your group has in Congress.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/business/coal-miner-pensi...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/politics/biden-union-pension-...

The biggest pension (and IRA/401k) bailout, however, is the implicit backstop the US provides the public equity markets. Might as well cut out the middleman and own the inflation protected asset yourself rather than accept a defined benefit in someone else’s control.

International market price.

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