Back in the early 1990s I was one the guys who helped sell the idea of 401(k)s to very reluctant work forces. They didn't understand it. They feared it. They were deaf to half the pitch: when you said markets would go up and down, they only heard down. But companies wanted out of the so-called defined benefits racket. So with plentiful inducements (company matches), everyone bought in.
Okay, cut to the federal government. One would think, one would hope, one would fantasize that a responsible national government would have a few priorities posted on its bulletin board, number one being: Protect these people's retirement investments at all costs. Risk management, in other words. Because if you don't? Well, for one thing, the U.S. health care system is headed toward the boomer iceberg like the Titanic at flank speed. And if those golden oldies (me included) don't have any money left to help pay for the enormous cost of their chronic diseases and repair bills? Guess who gets stuck again.
Maybe the U.S. can take on so much debt that the obligations become another planet orbiting the sun. Right now I'm afraid the debt will become an asteroid instead, ending life as we know it.
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