You know one thing that I've always wondered on this board? Just how long can a topic title be? That one in the music

[Sloats]

Fine, the point I was trying to make was that 401K have destroyed retirement security, not which plan is more attractive to employers or employees.

[60FeetUnderWater]

can somebody please change the title of this thread to "Economic Blah Blah" or "401Ks are Gay" or something like that so as to not accidently walk into this snorefest again??

thx.

[The Man]

Now that that's done. I completely disagree with your hypothesis.

My retirement is so much better from a 401K than a pension. It gave me the ability to leave one job, go to grad school and get another job, while just moving my 401K to the new job.

I would have lost my pension. It gives employees more choices, it gives employers more control over their costs, and it puts money into areas that will spur more growth than a passive pension fund.

[The Man]

Originally posted by 60FeetUnderWater
can somebody please change the title of this thread to \"Economic Blah Blah\" or \"401Ks are Gay\" or something like that so as to not accidently walk into this snorefest again??

thx.

Go stare at some blinky lights and entertain yourself. The adults are talking.

[60FeetUnderWater]

I'm not allowed to plug any lights into the socket thingie.


by the way, DIG took my cereal.

[Sloats]

Originally posted by The Man
Now that that's done. I completely disagree with your hypothesis.

My retirement is so much better from a 401K than a pension. It gave me the ability to leave one job, go to grad school and get another job, while just moving my 401K to the new job.

I would have lost my pension. It gives employees more choices, it gives employers more control over their costs, and it puts money into areas that will spur more growth than a passive pension fund.

portability =/= security. You have not addressed the impending market dip when boomers start retiring and withdrawing funds. Plus you are assuming that you can get a better return with your investments than a compnay can with 100-10,000 times your balance. 401K funds are not protected nor secure. You can lose money and if you do not guesstimate right, you will be starting a new career at 65.

plus 401K benefits quitters.

Eventhough this does not address security, 80K + Pension Plan = 90K + no match DC plan.

[The Man]

The change in the environment from one where employees are locked in to their employer for life to one where employees can freely move from company to company keeping their retirement package enables higher benefits in aggregage.

If I know I can't leave, then my company doesn't have to pay me what I'm worth. With the ability to freely move from company to company, their is more competition for work, wages increase.

So it's not as cut and dry. 401ks own

[Sloats]

Depends on your career. Consulting/IT there is a lot of job hopping. Manufacturing/Assembly tends to be a one employer career.

[The Man]

Because most of them still pension plans. Why is that?

Because they are unionized. Why does that matter?

Because the union wants to maintain power, and in so doing, they make decisions based on what is best for the union, not its employees.

[Sloats]

ok, Younger employees like 401K, Older employees like DB. Longer term employees like DB, Job hoppers like 401. It's all a matter of your market and employees. IBM tried to change it's pension plan from a traditional DB to Cash Balance that emulates a DC plan but there was an uproar it's culture was long term service employees. The employees at IBM felt that they would work only at IBM for 30 years. IBM wanted to attrack fresh ideas and fast trackers who tend to only work at companies for a short period of time. The current culture was the reason IBM has slipped: Very Safe and Very few new ideas. Also, employees at IBM are better at math and actually valued their pension plan. It's not necessarily a "union thing".