[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

401K's and investment retirement plans are all set up to benefit those whit the most salary and with the most knowledge about stock market and investments. Every employee, no matter how uneducated in investment they are, is expected to pick and choose their stocks, bonds, trusts, and various other options to "invest" their retirement money in the stock market. There are no guarantees, and there is no safety net should your investment broker fuck you over.


My mother's 401K retirement fund from 25 years working at a top-notch cardiologist in Houston lost over 50% of it's funds overnight due to the Enron scandal, money she will never get back.


Unless you can afford to put away 15% of your salary, or at least 15,000 a year. If that is the case then the 401K can work very favorably for you, but it is still putting your hard earned retirement money into a gambling pyramid scheme.



It used to be that large corporations and companies would set up trusts that they would feed money into, and which would get invested for safe returns (NOT stock market, more like government bonds and IRA's) so that long-term employees could draw a pension.


This is the way that America became such a mighty industrial powerhouse, making sure employees were taken care of, loyalty was a given because the company cared enough to look after you (after the unions forced the capitalists hands), all backed up by government regulations. This meant more $$ in employees hands, more spending, and more healthy economy. Now? the $$ goes to the top of the pyramid scheme,a nd to shareholders who are looking for return opn investment, and do not care about the actual health of the companies.


Those regulations were gutted by Reagan and instead of safe pension plans, everyone absorbed those funds to use in paying off dividends and latched onto the 401K model.


The rich making the rules work for the rich.


same old story...

Wow, that's an interesting take. I've never heard of a 401k labeled as a pyramid scheme before. I'll have to do my research, I guess.