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Post by moonstone2 on Jan 14, 2015 12:32:55 GMT -5
Yeah, moonstone2 is right - if you get a public pension (not something I'm really trying to focus on here), you generally will not get Soc Sec b/c you likely did not buy into it. State/muni employees do not pay into (and are not eligible for) soc sec. However, those that do not get a public pension generally are eligible. The SSA has a flier on it. I followed the state race for Treasurer very closely and met every candidate at a small event that gave the opportunity for questions. This came up at every event.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 14, 2015 12:35:13 GMT -5
Go on and continue to vote for someone who will continue to screw the people over. I won't. My vote is precisely in not voting. It's not laziness or hiding. It is a calculated action. I refuse to participate in something that will never ever fix itself. Gandhi got England out of India by preaching non-participation. Do whatever you want and so will I. I'm plenty educated. I was being sarcastic about food stamps. I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than 50% of people living on Social Security though. If you are so educated then why do you keep making statements that are incorrect? It is also not true that half of the US population is receiving social security. As to your second statement, if the people stay away from the polls then the few that do go the polls would make all of the decisions. If you think that these decisions will be in your best interest, think again. I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than 50% of people living on Social Security who receive food stamps. The people don't make any decisions. The corporations who buy the elections and write the laws do.
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Post by moonstone2 on Jan 14, 2015 12:38:42 GMT -5
If you are so educated then why do you keep making statements that are incorrect? It is also not true that half of the US population is receiving social security. As to your second statement, if the people stay away from the polls then the few that do go the polls would make all of the decisions. If you think that these decisions will be in your best interest, think again. I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than 50% of people living on Social Security who receive food stamps. The people don't make any decisions. The corporations who buy the elections and write the laws do. Also not true. The statistics on who receives food stamps and social security benefits are available. I wouldn't be surprised that it's not whom you think it is.
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Post by moonstone2 on Jan 14, 2015 13:10:58 GMT -5
Not really because not all debt is the same.
A rise in consumption can only be caused by an increase in wages or consumer debt. If wages remain flat as they have, only consumer debt can cause consumption to rise. Therefor flat wages will cause either flat consumption or a rise in debt.
The rise in corporate debt is really no more than a transfer of wealth. In an LBO for example, corporate debt rises while inventory levels and fixed investment remain the same. The companies future cash-flows are transferred from it's employees and current bond holders to the new bond holders and old equity holders. Of course there is always room for a large management fee, and a dividend to the new equity holders!
The MLBPA pension plan covers all uniformed personnel and trainers and it's very generous. A player who plays just one day in the majors receives full health coverage for life. After 34 days in the majors a player receives 34K per year in benefits and 100K for playing 10 years.
The pension was originally instituted in 1947, long before the advent of the MLBPA, and was far less generous. The MLBPA collectively bargained for a shorter vesting period in the 76 and 80 strikes, and recently agreed that players who retired between 1947 and 1980 should be compensated.
The minor league players by the way, who do not have union representation, have a 401K. Why exactly do you think that is?
When workers are able to collectively bargain, they get pensions, when they are not they usually receive 401Ks or nothing. There's a reason for that.
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Post by moonstone2 on Jan 14, 2015 13:14:41 GMT -5
An appeal to popularity. Just because younger workers favor 401Ks does not mean that their risk adjusted future expected benefit is higher. In fact, it's not. They are a transfer of real wealth from the employee to the employer.
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Post by guest1 on Jan 14, 2015 16:04:03 GMT -5
401k is certainly a better option for new employees in 2015. The only time I see DB plans to be valuable is if it is offered along with the DC plan as an additional benefit. 401K typically offers the ability to add your own money to the plan along with contributions from the company. A DB plan will typically not allow you to make any contributions to it or even manage your own investments. In the end you also have to look at the DB plan in a long term scope. When you start withdrawing on it the number per month is typically a set amount. So theoretically over time the dollar will be less valuable making it a less valuable retirement option (time value of money). So it the end the 401k offers a lot more flexibility even though you are limited to contributions, but don't forget there are other plans to contribute to. For a ball player it seems worthless with the amount you make, but that money can easily be gone if not careful. The 401k is a nice fall back option for someone in this situation.
Also...My job is working with 401k, Pension and Tax Exempt plans as well as trading. I work with high net worth accounts.
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Post by joshv02 on Jan 15, 2015 10:46:18 GMT -5
They are a transfer of real wealth from the employee to the employer. Why do you say that? That's what I'm wondering. I haven’t really seen why you think that is true.
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Post by guest1 on Jan 15, 2015 16:08:51 GMT -5
They are a transfer of real wealth from the employee to the employer. Why do you say that? That's what I'm wondering. I haven’t really seen why you think that is true. I was wondering that myself. Maybe the employers gain wealth by contributions to the DC plan because its a tax break for them? I do know that any employer contributions are tax deductible passing the tax along to the employee. Its still an advantage for employees though...
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Post by moonstone2 on Jan 16, 2015 17:13:13 GMT -5
Why do you say that? That's what I'm wondering. I haven’t really seen why you think that is true. I was wondering that myself. Maybe the employers gain wealth by contributions to the DC plan because its a tax break for them? I do know that any employer contributions are tax deductible passing the tax along to the employee. Its still an advantage for employees though... Switching to an employer match 401K from a pension reduces corporate contributions to the retirement fund to 3 percent of payrolls to 7 or 8 percent. I promise you this money isn't spent on more workers, higher wages, or better employee benefits. It's mostly spent on buying back the stock which is generally owned or issued to in the form of options to the management of the company. The worker, however exchanges a sure payout to one that is greatly effected by swings in the financial and housing markets. As an end result, the median worker at retirement has roughly 60K in their 401K. I am going to bet you that the average total pension benefit would be higher than that. As a result of having less to retire on, workers have to work for their employers for longer. Hence when a company shifts from a pension to a 401k they are in fact shifting real wealth from their employees and taking it for themselves.
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Post by joshv02 on Jan 16, 2015 21:30:38 GMT -5
None of that has to do with risk adjusted returns? Average 401k spend vs db spend is about 3-4 points to db, but most of that is in admin costs (which account for roughly 3 points, or 4 depending on the study) which don't go the worker.
Any data to show higher risk adjusted returns to DBs, per your prior post?
At most, it's a percentage point, it seems, with decreased portability, high hidden risk, and higher chance to have nothing (given vesting rules that aren't present in 491ks).
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 17, 2015 1:24:41 GMT -5
This discussion is down there in the weeds again, and it misses the bigger point I made at the beginning: Risk adjusted returns are meaningless when everything goes south, which is exactly what happened. It makes a sick joke of the entire premise for 401k investments, and anything invested for the sake of defined benefit plans as well. In the latest fiasco, there was a real transfer of wealth from everyone in the country to all financial institutions who provide short-term paper, to the funds that had bought into the trash that had been generated, to stock portfolios... to the entire system. That transfer was in the form of taxpayer provided cash stimulus, lost jobs, and an endless stream of money at the Fed discount window, augmented by the eventual sopping up of all the rotted assets so that, what, we can go down this road again? The fine-grained calculations about ROI incorporate none of that near-death experience, outside of the precipitous drop that happened in very short order. That was only halted by "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke to save this quasi-capitalism from collapse, to the ultimate benefit of the oligarchs who crashed the thing. Look, you and I don't get free money, and that certainly has nothing to do with marketplace capitalism. And the real risk has yet to be calculated since the game was stopped once the ugliness got large enough. The way this works is simple. An absurd amount of leverage inflates a stream of phony investments even as there is a generous chunk of that wealth being siphoned off for creating and marketing the garbage. When the inevitable collapse happens the bubble deflates to a value well below that of the underlying assets, given the amount that was hauled off. The system gets reset, and the very money that was used to re-float the oligarchs is then re-purposed, to bribe politicians so that the game can start again. There are losers here, lots of them, and they're both employees and employers. The winners are those operating outside the marketplace, making book on the willingness of governments to bail them out.
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