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Making higher education free would be the single best way to increase social mobility.
BS, "free" college education benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. The poor cannot sit in a class, even if it is free, when there ain't no food in the fridge.
There will come a day in the U.S. that all the IRA's, 401K's, and Roth's will be expropriated from their owners under the ruse of "National Emergency" and folded into the General Fund [sic] by Executive Order....Could be as early as President Hillary's 2nd term......and the ignorant seething masses in the cities will hail the action as FAIR and JUST.....
Les Leopold: In The Looting of America, Leopold debunks the prevailing media myths that blame low-income home buyers who got in over their heads, people who ran up too much credit-card debt, and government interference with free markets. Instead, readers will discover how Wall Street undermined itself and the rest of the economy by playing and losing at a highly lucrative and dangerous game of fantasy finance.
He also asks some tough questions:
Why did Americans let the gap between workers' wages and executive compensation grow so large?
Why did we fail to realize that the excess money in those executives' pockets was fueling casino-style investment schemes?
Why did we buy the notion that too-good-to-be-true financial products that no one could even understand would somehow form the backbone of America's new, postindustrial economy?
How do we make sure we never give our wages away to gamblers again?
And what can we do to get our money back?
In this page-turning narrative (no background in finance required) Leopold tells the story of how we fell victim to Wall Street's exotic financial products. Readers learn how even school districts were taken in by "innovative" products like collateralized debt obligations, better known as CDOs, and how they sucked trillions of dollars from the global economy when they failed. They'll also learn what average Americans can do to ensure that fantasy finance never rules our economy again.
As the country teeters on the brink of what could be the next Great Depression, we should be especially wary of the so-called financial experts who got us here, and then conveniently got themselves out. So far, it appears they've won the battle, but The Looting of America refuses to let them write the history--or plan its aftermath.
The amerikan dream, you have to be asleep to believe it. Some Americans need to turn off the reality trash media and start researching.
^^^This. I don't understand why so many working class people support unregulated banking and investing as see is as the god of capitalism. You get screwed and don't even get kissed.
First of all, 2% is an outrageous fee and not representative of a typical 401(k) management fee. Second, even at 2%, I'd like to see how the math works out that this would equate to siphoning off 2/3rds of your account. Third, do people think defined benefit funds are managed for free?
First of all, 2% is an outrageous fee and not representative of a typical 401(k) management fee. Second, even at 2%, I'd like to see how the math works out that this would equate to siphoning off 2/3rds of your account. Third, do people think defined benefit funds are managed for free?
Great points. You would have to own a fund earning 3% that charges a very high fee to reach the claimed 2/3rds....and mind you 401Ks are for the long term...so you would be in an under performing fund that charged you immensely for years.
The Michigan Teacher's pension has a management fee of around 1.5%...had been even higher. I pay less fees in my 401K. When Republicans tried to address this - there was liberal/union indignation.
Just another example of the facade of social mobility in the US. All the laws on the books are written to protect the uber rich and Wall Street banks due to the fact the government is impregnated from top to bottom with friends of Wall Street. How are the regulators supposed to regulate when there's a revolving door of employees between government regulators and Wall Street? Then when Wall Street's gambling blows up, tax payers have to bail them out so our entire way of life doesn't collapse due to financial armegeddon. Yeah, America is "the land of the free" alright. NOT.
Create a crisis and impose their solution to the problem on us.
Yes and the best part is they can scream about the evil bankers the whole time and how they, the gov, will save us all from those evil golden parachute thieves. Meanwhile in DC..................lol
Yes. And as I watched this episode of Frontline, I became very frustrated.
Here is a publicly funded documentary parsing the "theft" that occurs in the differential between 0.5% management fees and 3% management fees.
All I could think to myself was "WHEN THE HELL is some so-called investigative journalist going to report on the 15.3% of my income (total FICA taxes of SS and Medicare, including the employer's share) taken from me and my employer?? Taken, and NOT placed in an investment vehicle to earn interest. NOT left in an account at all, but plundered and raided with impunity.
So much for Frontline's "hard-hitting investigative reporting"!!!!
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