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Leperflesh posted:Having trashed 401(k)s a bit, I feel like it's worth mentioning that there are good ones available. My 401(k) includes bond funds, and if I really don't want to be in mutual funds at all, I can pick money market or even just cash. And of the stock funds, there are good low-cost index funds across the board. 401ks the freedom to lose every cent in your retirement so you can spend your last days desperate to feed yourself.
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Oct 24, 2013 18:58
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Calipers and other pensions ARE the stock market in the same way your 401k is. One is defined benefit, one is defined contribution with match if you're lucky. But they're both invested in the stock market. In fact, another reason conservatives tend to dislike pensions is that funds like calpers use their muscle on things like shareholder elections where other funds are much more hands off in regards to governance.
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Oct 24, 2013 19:15
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Ardennes posted:401ks the freedom to lose every cent in your retirement so you can spend your last days desperate to feed yourself. I get what you're saying, but this is much like your job, your house, the money in your bank account, etc. Social Security is supposed to be that guaranteed safety net that keeps retirees off the cat food. If it's failing, we need to fix it, rather than rely on the spotty coverage of people's employer-provided/funded/subsidized retirement plans. And it's also worth pointing out that regardless of what your employer is providing, and even if your employer provides nothing at all, you can always apply your earnings to save money for retirement directly; unless you make a lot of money, you can do an IRA, and even if that's not available, you can just sock away your savings. You can even buy into various life insurance schemes that provide a defined benefit, although many of those are outright scams and most are pretty expensive for what you get. Ron Jeremy posted:Calipers and other pensions ARE the stock market in the same way your 401k is. One is defined benefit, one is defined contribution with match if you're lucky. But they're both invested in the stock market. In fact, another reason conservatives tend to dislike pensions is that funds like calpers use their muscle on things like shareholder elections where other funds are much more hands off in regards to governance. The difference is that with a defined benefit plan, your employer and/or the state are taking on the risk (theoretically). With a 401(k), the employee takes on the risk. The employer/state is supposed to be prudent and wise with the money, which is possible because (theoretically) they can hire experts and have the clout to get better deals (institutional-class investments, for example). Employees with their relatively small amounts of clout have to buy consumer-grade investments and have to pay extra for "expert" advice that is often poor and sometimes blatantly against their interests. The end result is that many retirees would be massively better off if they'd had whatever portion of their income/compensation that went into their individually-managed retirement accounts instead applied to a conservatively managed defined benefit plan. Especially when you consider the unknowable factor of how many years of retirement have to be paid for; how fast do you tap your retirement money once you're 65 or whatever? Guess wrong and you either die with tons of unspent money that could have supported a higher quality of life, or run out of money at the age of 90 when you need it most and wind up surviving on medicare and social security. Defined benefit gives you a stable and predictable income for as long as you survive, which is more like an insurance product (you might "get screwed" if you die ten days after you retired, in that you paid in for decades and got nothing in return), but insurance can be a very good idea for a lot of situations where your individual needs in the future are hard to predict. edit: I know I'm belaboring this and perhaps it's a derail (if so, I'll shut up about it) but it's also erroneous to characterize individual investment options as "the stock market". Most retirement options include the ability to invest in basically all conventional asset types, including stocks, bonds (both corporate and state), real estate, metals, currency markets, and more. These are exactly the same asset classes used by pension plans to maintain their deposits, and there's really no other options to go with that aren't ludicrously risky and/or stupid (stuffing cash in your mattress, buying lottery tickets, investing in your brother-in-law's start-up restaurant, etc.). 401(k)s vary wildly in quality, and that's something to bemoan, and individuals shouldn't be expected to do as well as professional experts when self-managing retirement accounts, and that's also something that we ought to address. But it seems a lot of people have an attitude that they'd rather just ignore retirement savings because "lol stocks, amirite?" and that's just stupid and short-sighted. Unless you die young, you'll probably retire some day, and if you want a nicer retirement than social security can provide, you need to save some money. And if you're saving some money, and don't want to lose out to inflation every year, you need to find some kind of investment option that suits your risk tolerance, and for almost everyone, stocks (at least in the form of index funds) should be part of their portfolio. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 24, 2013 20:03
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Leperflesh posted:I get what you're saying, but this is much like your job, your house, the money in your bank account, etc. Obviously the issue is that 401ks were pushed as a replacement for a defined benefit pension, and now employees have to figure out how to get enough returns to not only make over the increased cost of living (which is significant) but store enough money so they can live comfortably for possibly decades. 401ks made it so there is an enticing slot machine sitting right now that promises great returns at "reasonable" risk. Social security should be fixed obviously but let's not pretend that companies should give decent and funded pensions from their own pockets.
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Oct 24, 2013 20:13
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redscare posted:Get your union to allow me and anyone else in the state who wants to buy into CalPERS and basically fund my own pension (and help fund everyone else's) and then I'll change my tune. The way I see it, public employees in CA can either help make things better for everyone else or they'll get jobbed out when the hammer falls because as it stands, public workers get an easy ride on the back of taxpayers who could never even dream of getting those benefits in this day and age. Crab mentality gently caress the unions rhetoric aside as a state employee vested in CalPERS I am 100% down with opening CalPERS investment up to everyone in the state. It'd need a bunch of new regulation to make it work (mandated employer contributions?  ) but it'd be better for everyone so let's do that.
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Oct 24, 2013 20:19
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Leperflesh posted:Especially when you consider the unknowable factor of how many years of retirement have to be paid for; how fast do you tap your retirement money once you're 65 or whatever? Guess wrong and you either die with tons of unspent money that could have supported a higher quality of life, or run out of money at the age of 90 when you need it most and wind up surviving on medicare and social security. Defined benefit gives you a stable and predictable income for as long as you survive, which is more like an insurance product (you might "get screwed" if you die ten days after you retired, in that you paid in for decades and got nothing in return), but insurance can be a very good idea for a lot of situations where your individual needs in the future are hard to predict. I agree with you in general, but to play devil's advocate for a bit. This same logic is why 401k and other defined contribution systems are so attractive to employers. The pension funds are also operating under certain models of X years of retirement and other actuarial models for health care and all the other costs that go into full pensions. The general trend in increased lifespans and the skyrocketed cost of health care blows holes in those decades old models and leaves the institutions on the hook for the difference. Dependence on the financial health of a company or a pension fund leaves individuals helpless when said company goes tits up. The defined contribution model allows workers to move around between jobs more flexibly instead of being tied into whatever group offers their pension. You can see quite a bit of dead weight in the form of workers who are just hanging around for their last few years to collect or maximize their pensions. In this case, the defined contribution model works better for both the worker and the employer. In addition, self-ownership of retirement plans also allows for things like borrowing against retirement and paying yourself back. As far as higher loads go, again self-ownership allows greater flexibility to choose either highly managed and/or high risk growth funds or low or no-load index type funds. The match is the kicker though. If you can get a match, then you've doubled your money from day one.
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Oct 24, 2013 20:20
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I agree with most of what you said, Ron Jeremy, with one exception: Ron Jeremy posted:Dependence on the financial health of a company or a pension fund leaves individuals helpless when said company goes tits up. I'm not sure if it's universal or just optional, but the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation(actually a government institution, despite the name) guarantees pensions when the company goes tits-up. Also, many pensions allow an employee to leave the company, as long as they've put in enough years to be "vested". Their pension may not grow with their future salary, but it doesn't just poof away in a cloud of smoke, either. You are correct though that portability is one of the key benefits of a defined-contribution plan, and it's not an insignificant aspect.
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Oct 24, 2013 20:28
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I really don't understand why there isn't a state-run pension fund. It would have to get me better return than my terrible 401k (15 years at 3.8%! Whoopty loving doo!) and I would absolutely pay into it rather than the goddamn STOCK MARKET. There was a push recently in the state legislature to create a state-run pension plan for people in the private sector, but I don't think anything came of it, which is too bad.
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Oct 24, 2013 21:00
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The whole pension whining is sort of off-topic but the another catch with the plans such as social security is they tend make safer lower yield investments. This can be compared to 401k plans which can easily be cratered since for example someone or even their 401k manager decided to make real estate heavy investments before 2009.
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Oct 24, 2013 22:24
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etalian posted:The whole pension whining is sort of off-topic but the another catch with the plans such as social security is they tend make safer lower yield investments. Pensions make sense. Social security... eh, it's rather stupid the way it's done. There should be no cap on pay-in and it should honestly be means-tested. Serving more as a form of insurance/safety net rather than a guaranteed payout. 401ks though, 401ks are pretty dumb in general.
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Oct 25, 2013 06:38
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Pensions make sense. Social security... eh, it's rather stupid the way it's done. There should be no cap on pay-in and it should honestly be means-tested. Serving more as a form of insurance/safety net rather than a guaranteed payout. 401ks though, 401ks are pretty dumb in general. 401ks are pretty much redistribution of wealth from the middle class back to wall street managers.
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Nov 5, 2013 17:01
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Dan Walters: California once again in vortex of culture warquote:So once again, California voters will find themselves at the vortex of the culture war. Cool! Even more yelling about the gays and culture wars, this time at the expense of transgender kids in public schools!
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Nov 13, 2013 02:09
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To be honest, public high school locker rooms are pretty gross and privacy-violating even when they're fully gender-segregated. If someone's willing to undertake the risk of publicly identifying trans, the odds that they're doing it just to get a glimpse of someone's genitals inappropriately are pretty slim. And anyway, if that's what your concern is, what about gay students in their own gender's locker rooms? Basically what I'm saying is locker rooms should have lots of stalls with doors on them anyway. Teens have enough body-shape issues as it is.
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Nov 13, 2013 02:16
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I had someone tell me that "kids can just decide that they want to be a girl that day and hang out in the girls locker room!" I had to explain no kid would pretend to be transgender just to get a peek in the girl's locker room. Transgender kids go through horrible hazing and abuse and it's not something to just joke around with.
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Nov 13, 2013 02:17
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I don't know about anyone else, but when I was changing in my high school locker room, I didn't look at anyone else and prayed that no one was looking at me. It wasn't exactly the shower scene from Starship Troopers, we were all uncomfortable with our bodies, because ya know, puberty. Dammit, beaten: Leperflesh posted:Basically what I'm saying is locker rooms should have lots of stalls with doors on them anyway. Teens have enough body-shape issues as it is.
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Nov 13, 2013 02:18
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FCKGW posted:I had someone tell me that "kids can just decide that they want to be a girl that day and hang out in the girls locker room!" It makes me really sad that trans people are the next disenfranchised group for the culture warriors to bash for political points. If the trajectory of grudging gay rights acceptance is any indication, it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.
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Nov 13, 2013 02:24
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I get the SacBee and see Dan Walter's weekly rants against unions, "regulations", and coastal snobbery against the inland hicks... he wants Cal to be Texas soooooo bad.
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Nov 13, 2013 02:52
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Keyser S0ze posted:I get the SacBee and see Dan Walter's weekly rants against unions, "regulations", and coastal snobbery against the inland hicks... he wants Cal to be Texas soooooo bad. To be fair, inland hicks are just the worst.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:10
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etalian posted:401ks are pretty much redistribution of wealth from the middle class back to wall street managers. If you're dumb and buy funds with high expense ratios. Otherwise they're a great way to invest while being sheltered from taxation.
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Nov 13, 2013 06:21
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Eh, I have not automatically thrown my support to gender-changing being an actual thing. However, if it annoys the culture warriors that much, I can get behind it.
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Nov 13, 2013 06:38
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http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-rejects-contract-provision-on-family-leave-4999115.php So BART sends a contract to the unions for approval, they approve it, then someone at BART actually reads the contract and realizes that there was some additional family leave benefit accidentally included (they blame a temp employee  ). The BART board proceeds to just strikes out that item and approve the changed version of the contract. The unions are obviously less than happy about this and are meeting to consider their options. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-resumes-service-freeways-clogged-5001191.php Then late last night there is a mysterious computer glitch (on both the primary and the backup systems) that shuts the entire system down, making it so that the trains and track switches all have to be operated by hand. The people stuck on that last train end up taking hours to get to their destinations and BART isn't running at all this morning until about 7:30am and commuters flip the gently caress out. So I guess we can all look forward to that ballot prop banning transit unions to pass by a landslide come next election. 
withak fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 17:49
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withak posted:http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-rejects-contract-provision-on-family-leave-4999115.php Well even if there's foul play involved if the transit workers union can't make trains run without the computer helping them what the hell good are they? This could have been their opportunity to show how valuable they really are, instead the trains aren't running.
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Nov 22, 2013 17:51
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withak posted:http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-rejects-contract-provision-on-family-leave-4999115.php Bart management was under tremendous pressure to end the strike when that dude died on the tracks. My tinfoil hat says they passed something just to pass something in order to kick the process down the road. The media narrative is no longer "scab workers are unsafe" but rather "the evil seiu insists on a contract everyone knows will kill Bart". Commence litigation.
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Nov 22, 2013 17:56
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Budget is projected to have a 2 billion surplus this year, enough to pay down some debt or actually start a rainy day fund. Expect to see a lot of conservatives start screaming about how it is "an illusion."
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Nov 22, 2013 18:55
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predicto posted:Budget is projected to have a 2 billion surplus this year, enough to pay down some debt or actually start a rainy day fund. Expect to see a lot of conservatives start screaming about how it is "an illusion." Conservatives are really loving mad that CA is doing so well with a Democratic supermajority. All of their cries of "Watch all the jobs leave for Texas" were complete poo poo and it's pissing them off, so yea, I expect some amazing comments about how we're actually the worst place in the world to live/own a business.
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Nov 22, 2013 18:59
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WampaLord posted:Conservatives are really loving mad that CA is doing so well with a Democratic supermajority. All of their cries of "Watch all the jobs leave for Texas" were complete poo poo and it's pissing them off, so yea, I expect some amazing comments about how we're actually the worst place in the world to live/own a business. Especially when the populace actually votes itself a tax increase to boot.
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Nov 22, 2013 19:06
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WampaLord posted:Conservatives are really loving mad that CA is doing so well with a Democratic supermajority. All of their cries of "Watch all the jobs leave for Texas" were complete poo poo and it's pissing them off, so yea, I expect some amazing comments about how we're actually the worst place in the world to live/own a business. At least the latest Texas frontier myth and cries of Californian doom rid your state of some of its millions of amateur real estate speculators, if only temporarily. I couldn't go to a coffee shop anywhere in Southern ca without catching the tail end of some horrible real estate pitch/scam, but at least now they're talking about dropping their cash turd there and not here. Nothing warms your heart like listening to some Camarillo retired agent stroke his chin thoughtfully when asked, "Is Martha the next Austin?", and imagining him broke with a shopping cart full of poo poo at age 60. agarjogger fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 19:07
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Pook Good Mook posted:Especially when the populace actually votes itself a tax increase to boot. What's even more surprising was that no matter what we were going to see a tax increase between prop 30 and 38 depending on which one received more votes, but that the good tax increase actually received a proper majority from voters. Also, here's another funny thing about the prop 30 / 38 battle. pre:Proposition Donations in favor Donations against Proposition 30 $67,100,000 $53,400,00 Proposition 38 $47,800,000 $42,300
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Nov 22, 2013 19:17
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A Winner is Jew posted:Prop 30 was attacked at ridiculous levels by the same people supporting prop 38 and it still passed by a wide margin while no one really opposed prop 38. Prop 30 had a ton of support from Teacher's Unions, and got a lot more funding to boot. I got to phone-bank on that campaign  .
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Nov 22, 2013 19:23
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A Winner is Jew posted:What's even more surprising was that no matter what we were going to see a tax increase between prop 30 and 38 depending on which one received more votes, but that the good tax increase actually received a proper majority from voters. That isn't really true, both props could've failed.
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Nov 22, 2013 19:26
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Family Values posted:That isn't really true, both props could've failed. True, but unless I'm misremembering things even if both of them failed it was agreed that the legislature would implement whichever tax increase proposition received the most votes.
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Nov 22, 2013 19:37
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Pook Good Mook posted:Well even if there's foul play involved if the transit workers union can't make trains run without the computer helping them what the hell good are they? I think it probably wasn't an issue of workers being unable to do their job, but more likely management failing to you know, actually manage things and develop effective procedures for a signaling failure. But yes, workers will probably get blamed for it.
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Nov 22, 2013 19:48
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Pook Good Mook posted:Well even if there's foul play involved if the transit workers union can't make trains run without the computer helping them what the hell good are they? Eh, that wind last night knocked over a huge tree in my parents' neighborhood in Oakland. I wouldn't be too surprised it if caused problems elsewhere.
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Nov 22, 2013 19:54
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They may not get back their supermajority in the assembly right away, the special election from this week has the Dem up by only 171 votes and there's still 2,000 mail/provisional ballots to be counted. It's a heavily Democratic district but of course the turnout was terrible. The gun people were really into this race. But there's also another special in Dec to fill the last vacant seat, so they need to win either one to get back to 2/3rds.
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Nov 22, 2013 20:08
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WampaLord posted:Conservatives are really loving mad that CA is doing so well with a Democratic supermajority. All of their cries of "Watch all the jobs leave for Texas" were complete poo poo and it's pissing them off, so yea, I expect some amazing comments about how we're actually the worst place in the world to live/own a business. Many conservatives I know on Facebook (all of whom don't live in CA and never have) swear up and down still that CA is still on the verge of bankruptcy because their pundits have said so. When I point out that there's still tons of jobs here in the Bay Area and rent in SF remains among the highest in the nation, they usually hand-wave it away with claims that it's only because of trustfunders and spoiled young people who will move to Texas the second they want to get married and have babies like good, red-blooded Americans. I am tempted to tell them that these CA transplants are continuing to vote Democrat and that even if Texas was a working American's paradise, Houston is a shithole and nobody wants to live there, but it will just piss them off.
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Nov 22, 2013 23:02
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ProperGanderPusher posted:Many conservatives I know on Facebook (all of whom don't live in CA and never have) swear up and down still that CA is still on the verge of bankruptcy because their pundits have said so. When I point out that there's still tons of jobs here in the Bay Area and rent in SF remains among the highest in the nation, they usually hand-wave it away with claims that it's only because of trustfunders and spoiled young people who will move to Texas the second they want to get married and have babies like good, red-blooded Americans. Places like Houston are considered a hardship location for Raytheon. Though piles of the big name defense and aeronautical companies are moving east to take advantage of smokestack development in the China of the USA(aka the deep south).
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Nov 22, 2013 23:08
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ProperGanderPusher posted:I am tempted to tell them that these CA transplants are continuing to vote Democrat and that even if Texas was a working American's paradise, Houston is a shithole and nobody wants to live there, but it will just piss them off. Hey, I might move there next year and I hear really good things about it. What's wrong with it?
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Nov 23, 2013 06:48
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enraged_camel posted:Hey, I might move there next year and I hear really good things about it. What's wrong with it? Do you like humidity and freeways? If so you'll love Houston.
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Nov 23, 2013 08:47
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enraged_camel posted:Hey, I might move there next year and I hear really good things about it. What's wrong with it? Houston has a lot of sprawl but otherwise it's mostly fine. Dallas has basically the same issues but is also full of shithead conservatives. (San Antonio is probably the best large city in the Central-Texas area)
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Nov 23, 2013 10:43
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enraged_camel posted:Hey, I might move there next year and I hear really good things about it. What's wrong with it? On the bright side cost of living especially housing is much cheaper than states such as CA but has lots of downsides such as a few months of miserable weather in the summer. Houston also has other annoying problems such as smog due to the presence of the energy industry and also car dependant nature of the city. 
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Nov 23, 2013 15:09
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