Ever wonder why executive pay is so out of whack with reality?

Ever wonder why some CEO's get bonuses, even in years when the company loses lots and lots of money?

Answer: Nobody is guarding the henhouse. I have a 401k, and I am a 'shareholder' in hundreds of companies. I don't have time to even know what companies I'm invested in, much less investigate whether or not the board of directors is ripping the company off. The 401k has brought in a continuous investment stream, from overwhelmed investors who can't track the company...and we wonder why some take advantage of the situation.

Ever wonder why US CEOs are compensated far more than comparable CEOs around the world? Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Last edited Tue Sep 17, 2013, 12:38 PM - Edit history (1)

I would not be averse to a income redistribution.

like "affect" versus "effect," principal/principle, etc. I know one teabagger who always writes "exasperate" when he means "exacerbate."

I would not have guessed from your writing that you're not born to the language. Out of curiosity, what is your original language?

and lived in Germany, France and Pakistan before coming to the US. I was baptized Roman Catholic so Latin was heard frequently by me and we settled first in El Paso, Texas so I also heard a lot Spanish. At one point I was fluent in German, French and had a really good understanding of Ecclesiastical Latin and Urdu. However when I was young (the first time we came to the US) I was speaking my sentences in 3 or 4 different languages and the4 nuns at the Catholic School I went to didn't appreciate it, so my mom had to cut out everything but English. I still can survive language wise in Germany tho. One of the tings that really helped me language wise was that when I was 13 I was chosen by the Vatican to go on a one year international singing tour. We went to 74 different countries 51 languages or dialects. It gave me an ear for language but that doesn't always translate to written communication. So I will make mistakes. Sorry about that. I am glad you pointed it out to me!

She learned English when her older sister went to school & started bringing it home. I learned "Kinderdeutsch" from her & to this day can pronounce German fairly well but am definitely in the Deutschverderber class when it comes to the grammar. I studied it 2 years in college and can half-assed read it when I have to, but don't do well understanding it in spoken form.

When I was in high school they wouldn't let me take German or French because I would have aced out of it, so I Japanese and got a C+ Where in WI are you? I loved my time in WI when I was 19 I sang on a national singing tour fo4r the Lutheran Church and we went to 25 different cities and towns in WI. I loved Summerfest in Milwaukee.

I have lived on both ends of the state--Milwauke & Superior, & was born near a small town in the north woods (sort of near where the mining travesty is presently occurring).

I sang in Eau Claire and also in the north woods in a little place called Irma. My favorite stop was in a suburb of Madison called Oregon.

Did both my undergrad & grad work there.

Once the Fund Managers were flush with funding from new 401Ks they then used that money to fund hostile take overs of otherwise responcible Compnies.

The then shipped the jobs overseas to increase their profits

set aside for pensions for the many, are now being doled out as bonuses to handful of executives.

Perfectly republican.

Participation should be mandatory at some minimal level (8% - 10% of base salary) and optional above that. Companies should be required to match the employees contribution up to some level (at least 3%). All of the companies for whom I've worked matched at least 3% of the contribution which is a strong motivation to participate. I could never understand people not participating at a level that got at-least the maximum match - it's free money.

I've been in 401k's since the mid-80's and all of the plans I've been in had at least one or two conservatively managed balanced fund that held both stocks and bonds. They would be good investments for someone not well versed in managing investments. Some plans I've seen had funds that targeted a particular retirement date and balanced the portfolio to be appropriate for a person planning to retire in that time frame.

that enrolls the employee in the employer-contribution side of the plan from day one. It's about three percent of your base pay, which isn't too much but is at least something.

I put in a whole lot more than my company does, because I understand the need to put aside money for my retirement.

I can't afford 8-10% of my pay going to 401k(I can't even do 3%), and even if I could my employers don't offer it.

If I have any money to retire with, it's because some sort of miracle occurred and SSI is still in place.

They are complete and total garbage.

We need a return of the pension system, where people have a monthly benefit to last them as long as they live, not some garbage account that is there only as long as there is money in it.

People can NEVER save anywhere NEAR enough in a 401(k), unless rich, to come close to the value of a pension.

We could debate what killed them, but that wouldn't change the current state of affairs. If you don't have a job with a pension now, you're unlikely to find one in the future, so saving for retirement is not really an option. If you're a public employee with a pension plan, I would consider the possibility that my pension money won't be there when I retire - a lot of cities don't have the money now and the situation is likely to get worse. Detroit is a good example.

It's a bad situation, but not saving is no answer. What is your solution?

and people without pensions will very much reset their taxes being raised to cover the pensions of others

and screwed their workers... or from Detroit which seems to be planning to do that.

Stop making apologies for the leading scam of the financial services industry.

At least with a 401k, your account is portable

Will read later

Rich people want you to give them your money so they can invest in risky investments. Skim the profit and leave you holding the bag when it crashes.

Fund managers make tens of millions...companies in charge of the funds, make millions more, CEO make hundreds of millions. All of it is your money and when the pressure is on, your money is the first to go.

Your summation of it is pretty much spot on.

I warned people they were scams and offer absolutely no protection for their accounts.

I have been right all along.

Are you speaking of them as a group? Or do you think that every manager of every single Mutual Fund out there receives a salary in the "tens of millions"?

But my mother has pensions in addition to a bit of Social Security she earned when she worked after we were grown. She has at least had some security with regard to what her monthly income would be.

In contrast, my generation of WWII war babies and baby boomers have a tiny bit of Social Security and the rest is all insecurity.

Not only is the job of reading and learning how to invest your money overwhelming for most of us (to say nothing of drudgery), but the insiders on Wall Street have manipulated the market and lied to the extent that we can't trust a word they say. And the fast trading they do puts anyone selling or buying an occasional stock on the losing end most of the time.

In addition, the banks charge high interest rates, pay their CEOS and other management royal bounties and depositors virtually nothing. In fact if you have a small account with at least one bank (on its way to oblivion and yet another handout from its federal friends no doubt) in one bank and are an adult, you could quite easily hand over ALL of your small savings account to the bank in monthly fees. It's very easy to do.

Then there are the payday loans.

Our banking and investment system needs to have some ethical rules enforced on it. The ones we have now don't work. They protect only the bankers and investment advisers. I have been in a position to review the financial papers of some very vulnerable ordinary people. I have seen the investments that some of their "advisers" have "advised" them to "invest" in. It is shocking and disgusting in some cases.

If you have a union pension, protect it. You are so much better off than non-union workers.

Wall Street is, in my opinion, a den of thieves. I don't speak for others in my family when I say that, but in my personal opinion, it is just a den of thieves.

At least I'll have some fun in the meantime, instead of paying for some fat cat's martini lunches. There was a recent story that some banksters get their market info 10 minutes earlier than everyone else. If that's not a fixed system, I don't know what is.

Because the public workforce is organized and has pensions. It's a disaster on all fronts.

and a Dem. Congress created it? Just wondering if you think this was all a boondoggle created by Jimmy.

rest of us.

now -- do you have a real point to make?

or do you want to try and 'educate' DU on history we know very well?

were out to screw the little guy? That's an interesting point of view.

I will agree with you thought that both Parties have been screwing the pooch on many issues. I just don't think Jimmy or the 1978 Dems were out to screw the little guy.

on this he and the congress were %100 wrong.

and don't tell me SOMEBODY wasn't around saying -- 'i don't think so...'

more of that 'unexpected' horseshit that elites expect the rubes to fall for.

now the thread is hi-jacked with this horseshit.

when someone erroneously called it "perfectly Republican" which is why I pointed out it was actually 100% Dem in doing.

I wish I could also help you with your anger issues. Please feel free to vent on me though as it just rolls off me.

You hi-jacked this thread having nothing to do with history.

You wanted to toss shit at Carter and distract from the disaster the 401k has become.

I specifically defended Carter when everyone else was "throwing shit" at the idea of 401ks.

You are an interesting character.

That is what happened. Carter shouldn't have had to protect all American workers from abuse of their purpose : "It was intended to allow taxpayers a break on taxes on deferred income", not to be relied upon for retirement.

In the coarse form of Capitalism, being forced by Big Business to not have a reliable pension and depend on something so beholding to the ups and downs of the market and bursting bubbles should be illegal. They only reason they've succeeded is by pitting workers against each other and damning unions with Koch Bros level money.

I merely pointed out this was a Dem congress and Carter change in the law.

I mean, even today, the max you can put into a 401(k) is 16.5k. Max IRA under 50 is what? 5k? Depending on your income you cannot tax deduct your IRA nor even participate in a ROTH.

No, he didn't. Think tanks and greed abused the function of the 401k. If you don't get that, you'll never understand how this country works.

I'll add that up through Reagan until Bush Jr, we had a government making sure Social Security was in place. Reagan upended the the commitment by Corporate America to its workforce by downsizing, outsourcing and kicking long time employees from their pensions to depend on the unreliable 401k. As the 1996 telecommunications act was advertized to promote competition, yet did just the opposite. We now pay 10 times more than any cable/satellite company is worth to watch about 20 minutes of advertizing an hour.

I'll lay the blame for almost everything at the feet of free market Capitalists. That includes the abuse of everything intended to help people achieve their American Dream.

Companies put these sham accounts in so that they could save money on pensions and to shift all of the risk on workers.

The old HR joke about "what starts with an "f' and ends with a "k" and means screwing over your employees" is apt.

How many times does it have to be drilled into our noggins that the free market economy finds a way to make money and take money from wherever it can. This leaves regulation as the solution. The 401k is good for a lot of people, depending on their own financial position. What isn't kosher is forcing the workforce to take them over pension plans. Then they spend a fortune hammering the public sector for daring to still have good pension plans.

Wise up folks! We're pitted against each other for the purpose of making other people a lot of money.

When FDR created Social Security, it was hoped that it would be part of a "three-legged stool" consisting of Social Security, pensions and private savings. That idea persisted until the Reagan revolution started sawing away at the second leg of that stool.

Thus making that statement a straw man.

I am also aware of FDR's "three legged stool" concept, a concept I wish people (for their own good) would pay more attention to.

The problem isn't with the 401k. The problem is taking pensions away from trusted workers and tossing them to the market's whims.

so again, irrelevant to what I said.

"You guys do realize Jimmy Carter signed this law

and a Dem. Congress created it? Just wondering if you think this was all a boondoggle created by Jimmy."

It was not a boondoggle of any kind. How many ways can this be said?

Umm, okay. Everyone else was saying it was a problem/conspiracy. I asked folks if they really thought Carter would create a boondoggle to fleece the little guy. I REPEATEDLY said I did not think he would do that.

I thought that my statements were clear and simple...guess I was wrong. Do you understand now? Do I need to explicate this more? Repeat it a few more times?

Of course the usual suspects from the financial services industry will peddle their nonsense here about how great this garbage is as opposed to pensions.

In last week's "401K's have no value diatribe" I asked what personal experience sent you into such a frenzy.

My 401K has been good to me so far, so ...

Why all the hate?

nt

cases and cases of it.

:evilgin:

The purpose of 401K, as in a section of the tax code was to grandfather certain corporate matching investment plans from changes to the tax code. My father has one of these pre-401k accounts. The investment industry ran with it, but the only thought that really went into it was not screwing over people who already had such investments.