News

You are not forced to buy stocks in a 401(k), but most people chose to as it has significant tax advantages over owning them outside of a retirement account. Rich people would LOVE to own more in the same way and pay less taxes.

It's doing its job.

Rich people are getting richer while poor people squabble over bullshit.

Time is much more important than money.

I concur, especially if you have company match programs (like 5%) where you are basically guaranteed to double your savings FOR FREE.

Wife and I have 401Ks and rollover IRAs and even when the market wasn’t performing to expectations during this recession we only lost $1K total over the last quarter; and now that seems to be, maybe, bouncing back. Over the course of the 20+ years we’ve made something like 200% more* than just leaving it in an account. According to our financial advisor our retirement savings is better than most Americans. That’s pretty frightening since we still have 20 years to go, at the current economic growth, to be able to retire.

The stock market may be legalized gambling but if you have a financial advisor that makes money when you do (performance based pay) you are almost guaranteed to make a lot more money. And hey, if the stock market collapses we have a much bigger problems than how we’re going to retire.

*Thats literally off the top of my head. Do not grill me about how crappy or too good that % is. You’re wasting your time since this is just based on what I remember and how I feel about it. No, I can’t be arsed to figure the real data out.

I just had to quit my job, which was so low-paying I didn't have anything to invest with, in order to be a "learning coach" for my daughter's online school. Now we're on a single income. So it must be nice to have that kind of money to put into a retirement account, but we don't have it.

Luck is more important than time. Eg. Ill health, caring for children/relatives, debt, mental health issues, etc. You can do everything right and still lose. That is life. In this hypercapitalist and often unequal system, it is more likely that you will lose.

A lot of people haven't saved enough for retirement. Not all of them did so out of ignorance. They simply had no choice but to prioritise the short term. More than you think, they're too ashamed to be honest about it, even if it's arguably not their fault.

Not you because you were simply responding to a comment, but this is why I strongly recommend people don't lecture too much when it comes to retirement and check their privilege. A lot of people are simply unaware of the privileged position they're in, would prefer not to think about how easy it is to lose everything, and that most people simply can't afford to invest even if they wanted to.

Eg. My current pension plan is to not live beyond 65. It's deeply sad, but it is what it is. I try to focus on the here and now. I'm lucky enough to have a roof over my head, but you'd be surprised how many homeless people have degrees. Hard science degrees too. People with decades of experience. It's scary.

Eg.

https://invisiblepeople.tv/how-highly-educated-people-end-up-on-the-streets/

Oh I already know I'll be working until I die. That's what happens when you work a series of low-paying jobs and live paycheck-to-paycheck.

We're in so much debt that investing even 5% of a paycheck is not possible. Every extra cent goes to credit card debt and medical debt.

It is well above historical valuations. Ultimately, the problem is that you simply won't get much of an ROI if you keep on investing on stocks at these valuations. So the natural trend is for people to move away from stocks,

not who are responding to but price to earnings ratio is high.

I will add that I still think we are due for a correction but that comes from the major stocks warming that the current quarter sales are gonna look ugly, even grocery stores have been warning that overall sales on amount and expense are down. Discount groceries sure are taking off too. I don't know how much of a dip but I think the post black Friday numbers might cause a short term slump on a lot of retail stocks