Financial markets around the world are reeling following President Donald Trump’s latest and most severe volley of tariffs, and the U.S. stock market may be taking the worst of it.
I mean, that’s basically what US Social Security is. It also has a cap, and poorer people actually get a little more out of it than they put in, while higher earners get less. It’s just that it doesn’t pay enough to work on its own.
The old idea was that the US would have three legs of retirement: Social Security, 401k’s, and traditional corporate pensions. Each of these has downsides, but a failure in one can be propped up by the other two. However, Social Security is being pilfered, corporate pensions rarely exist unless you have one of the unions that has maintained power until now, and 401k’s are too subject to the wild rides of the stock market.
I mean, that’s basically what US Social Security is. It also has a cap, and poorer people actually get a little more out of it than they put in, while higher earners get less. It’s just that it doesn’t pay enough to work on its own.
The old idea was that the US would have three legs of retirement: Social Security, 401k’s, and traditional corporate pensions. Each of these has downsides, but a failure in one can be propped up by the other two. However, Social Security is being pilfered, corporate pensions rarely exist unless you have one of the unions that has maintained power until now, and 401k’s are too subject to the wild rides of the stock market.