[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by GGG

Why not just have a mandatory 5% contribution to a locked in RRSP type vehicle that is owned by the individual and some kind of required company matching. (The answer is that they couldn't use the money to pay the next 20 years of retirees) At least you own the asset then.

This program essentially gives money to 50+ people right now at the expense of those less than 50. Terrible policy. I agree with the need for a mandatory retirement program that forces more money to be saved then currently done by the CPP but this framework is not the answer.

Up OAS for current retirees on a means tested basis. Unwind CPP, have mandatory, locked in personal contributions with a government (CPP Like) option being available.

Everybody invest in your company's 401k, it will surely never devalue. You can trust the private banking sector to protect your retirement.

Thirty years ago, as laissez-faire fanaticism took hold of America, misguided policymakers decided that do-it-yourself retirement plans, otherwise known as 401(k)s, would magically secure our financial future in the face of gyrating markets, economic crises, unpredictable life events, stagnant wages and rampant job insecurity. It was an extraordinary shift in thinking about public policy: Instead of having predictable streams of income from traditional pensions, ordinary people with little financial expertise would suddenly transform themselves into financial gurus, putting money aside and managing complicated investments in tax-deferred accounts.

There were red flags along the way for our 401(k)s. They were originally supposed to supplement pensions but clever corporate cost-cutters decided that voluntary individual accounts would replace them. Big difference! Meanwhile, throughout the 1990s, the national savings rate fell. Real wages dropped. As Helaine Olen details in her book Pound Foolish, Americans started borrowing against retirement plans to pay the mortgage or send the kids to college. The media was basically out to lunch and politicians went on claiming the nonsense that individual retirement accounts would encourage savings and turn us all into professional money managers. The stock market would bring us double-digit returns. Whoopie!

Reality check: In 2007, the financial crisis destroyed America’s retirement fantasy. Jobs evaporated or were downsized. The stock market took a nosedive. Millions of Americans who had worked hard, straining to sock away a portion of their salary for 401(k)s, watched helplessly as a black cloud formed over their golden years. In October 2008, the Congressional Budget Office revealed that Americans had lost $2 trillion in just 15 months — money that will likely never be recovered. Not long after, President Obama betrayed the public by turning away from the jobs crisis to create a deficit commission whose leaders had the stunning lack of foresight to advise cutting Social Security at a time when the retirement train wreck was quickly picking up steam.

Today, the balance in our retirement accounts falls wildly short of what we need to keep us from destitution in old age, much less to secure a comfortable existence. According to the Vanguard Group, in 2012, the average account balance in our 401(k)s was $86,212 — and that number is skewed by high earners at the top. The amount experts say we need? About $1 million or more, depending on how much you make now.

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/25/how...to-big-losers/

So much hand waving to fix something that isn't broken.