401(ahhhhhh)!

Having bounced around from job to job during my adult life, I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about 401(k)s and other retirement tools and bemoaning their weaknesses. The big problems seem to be that they don't really work for the self-employed, vesting schedules make employer matches meaningless (they're supposed to promote staying at your job but there's no such incentive for a company not to fire you), and actually getting real money out of your plan is a crapshoot that the market is high when you retire. This Time article is a bit inflammatory, but raises these points and more:

But retire rich? Don't bet on it. The average 401(k) has a balance of $45,519. That's not retirement. That's two years of college. Even worse, 46% of all 401(k) accounts have less than $10,000. Today, just 21% of all U.S. workers are covered by traditional pensions, and the number shrinks every year

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It'll be interesting to see where mine ends up in 30 years, but I don't have a lot of confidence that I'll be living the high life...

It's funny because it's true

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/the-magic-of-math/

Interesting Reading

Some good reading:

- An amusing rant about the financial industry and hemp by a broker who's taking his money and getting while the getting is good.

- A good summary of the absurdity of the Republican "voting fraud" faux scandal. Money Quote:

"Miles Rapoport, a former Connecticut secretary of state who is now president of Demos, a public policy group, remarked that ... that with the explosion of voter registration and the heightened interest in the presidential campaign, you’d think officials "would welcome that, and encourage it, and even celebrate it." Instead, he said, in so many cases, G.O.P. officials are "trying to pare down the lists." "

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I don't understand much of the problems behind the bailout proposals currently being debated - I imagine most of you are in the same boat. However, Paul Krugman - liberal columnist and economics professor at Princeton - is here to help by blogging about the current events.

Financial Malfeasance Explained

I found this article to be very informative as to the underlying reasons behind the recent financial meltdown.

Now all we need is someone to step in and prevent which, right now, looks like a bailout that is neither fair nor effective.