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My friend is 30, has no 401k savings and contribute nothing to their 401k losing the 6% employer match in the process. They just spent the money that could have been in their 401k....on a trip to vegas.
They aren't alone either.
How about instead of doing that you increases the FICA tax and increase SS benefits, essentially more forced saving by those whom won't.
SS already has penalties built in for the "rich" by making the benefit unproportional. (ie. the guy making 90k does not get 3x the SS payout that the guy making 30k gets)
There is no built in penalty. The wages subject to FICA taxes is capped. Anything over that amount is not subject to FICA taxes so the payout is the same for Bill Gates as it is everyone else who earned the max.
This is happening to people regardless of political affiliation.
And what is that? People being too dumb to do the basics to prepare for some kind of a retirement?
I'm sorry, yes I feel for many people but there are too many who didn't plan at all when they had good jobs and simply assumed those jobs would carry them right through to retirement.
I see them now, 30 or 40 years old driving around in $50,000 SUV's because they happen to be making a good income now, instead of socking 25% away in their 401K's or Roth IRA's and driving something sensible. And of course they are living in the $700,000 house they will never get paid for.
You know way too many of these people heading into dire straits did exactly that in their younger years when they should have been using some common sense.
I have a daughter I'm butting heads with right now. She just went out and bought herself a brand new car when there was nothing wrong with the old one. I asked her how much she's saving for retirement, now she's mad at me since she's only 28 years old. Let her be mad, I'm going to keep beating that drum.
I have a daughter I'm butting heads with right now. She just went out and bought herself a brand new car when there was nothing wrong with the old one. I asked her how much she's saving for retirement, now she's mad at me since she's only 28 years old. Let her be mad, I'm going to keep beating that drum.
Good for you. If you love her you'll tell her what she needs to hear instead of what she wants to hear.
As a PhD in economics, Dr Sowell pointed it out far better than I can. According to him, zoning artificially restricts the supply of housing (in the absence of zoning, the private sector would build more housing than they build with zoning). This artificially inflates the price of housing, creating more equity for homeowners and higher rents for renters.
The result is that renters become worse off and homeowners become better off; homeowners get to enjoy more housing AND also more non-housing goods while renters get less housing and also fewer non-housing goods.
Distorting the market (e.g. restricting supply) allows landlords to charge higher rents than they would otherwise be able to command. It's like government choosing sides and picking winners and losers.
If I had a scanner I would post his brilliant graph of this.
You're skewing this a little bit. You are implying that the act of renting us the cause of becoming worse off, and the act of owning a home is the cause of becoming better off.
The reality is that the person that becomes worse off does so for a lot of reasons, none of which is tied to renting. Renting is a side effect of being worse off. The person that becomes well off does so for a lot of other reasons, none of which is tied to owning a home. Homeownership is a side effect of being the type of person that becomes well off.
As a PhD in economics, Dr Sowell pointed it out far better than I can. According to him, zoning artificially restricts the supply of housing (in the absence of zoning, the private sector would build more housing than they build with zoning). This artificially inflates the price of housing, creating more equity for homeowners and higher rents for renters.
The result is that renters become worse off and homeowners become better off; homeowners get to enjoy more housing AND also more non-housing goods while renters get less housing and also fewer non-housing goods.
Distorting the market (e.g. restricting supply) allows landlords to charge higher rents than they would otherwise be able to command. It's like government choosing sides and picking winners and losers.
If I had a scanner I would post his brilliant graph of this.
How do you explain Europe then? Almost everyone rents in Europe. Are they all worse off?
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