New York Times is Pessimistic about Americans' Retirement. Let's Fix That.

A lack of savings makes a population less assertive and more dependent on the economic and political system. The US standard of living in 1980 was one of the highest in the industrialized world. The last numbers I saw prepared for Congress put the US below 15th. Asking people to save when the minimum wage would have to be $15.00 per hour or more when compared to the minimum wage in 1965 is not knowlingly not achievable. A lack of income for the poor and middle income reduces the ability to save! Rising healthcare cost, relocation cost, education costs and job turnover kills the savings propensity and basic ability. Exporting jobs and uncontrolled illegal immigration make the matter worse. The number of Americans unemployed and under employed and uninsured and with no retirement make the US a country citizens in other countries no longer desire. This change should not reflect on the values or characteristics of the forces that made the US great! Those traditional characteristics were usurped in the 70's or 80's and new characteristics typified by fascism and oligopolistic corporations was politically put in place to only result in massive failure and probably money laundering to havens outside the US. May God save us from those forces and may he guide Obama and his administration.....!

I just wanted to say AMEN to your piece. As one of those prospective retirees who has lost almost 40% of her 401K, change can't come soon enough. No one could have predicted this situation. But now that it has occurred, let's fix it for the future to protect all of us.

I won't be retiring at 65, but then, neither will my friends. I don't mind working; actually love it. And, I don't think there should be a predictive age for retiring. It should be individualized based on the particular person's needs and wants (and that includes the financial savings part).

Mark, Thank you for writing such a thought provoking piece. I was particularly interested in this line of thinking, "But there seems to be an underlying implication that the 401k system is tragically flawed. This seems to me unfounded." While I would tend to agree that the 401k system is not "tragically flawed", the 401k plan is certainly gasping for breath and in need of a doctor. The entire system is rife with the types of abuses that would outrage such criminals as Eliot Spitzer and Rush Limbaugh, if they only knew about them. You correctly mention that 2008 was a year in which Transparency was "in". But paying lip service to the idea of transparency is something that consulting firms, plan providers, and other plan administrators have been doing for years -- with little result. Now it looks like the panacea of 408(b)(2) may not come to pass. I guess my point is that just because people talk about transparency and fee disclosure, that does not mean it's actually happening in practice. How else would it be possible that the average 401k participant in this country is paying somewhere north of 3.5% in fees when you calculate explicit, implicit, and administrative costs? It's a travesty of the American system that has almost no equal outside of the rampant abuses in private health care. If we wait around for the government to solve the problem for us, it will never happen. The fund company lobbyists are just too powerful. Profit trumps Morality. Inefficiency and Opaqueness is the best defense against the potential of shrinking profit margins in a truly efficient 401k market. So where does that leave us? From my vantage point, we need a fully transparent system where all 401k market participants (sponsors, providers, participants, the government, the press) have equal access to high quality and complete data. Then, and only then, will some of these horrific abuses have the opportunity to correct themselves. In the absence of this, the retirement security of America's workforce is in great jeopardy. Best, Mike

People take very little responsibiity for their money or unemployment. This recession would not nearly be so bad if people were not seeking a job rather than realizing that their "job" is to be of value to others. One cannot say "I raise money for non-profits but I can't find a job." That's a useless "me-oriented" view of the economy. Rather, one can look and ask" what do people need that I can provide or learn to provide?" They would then be gainfully self employed rather than waiting for someone else to "give" them a job. Even people of retirement age can find opportunities for supplemental retirement income.