Sorry, perhaps just a dumb Canadian, but how is reliance on a 401K moronic? It's very similar to the Canadian RRSP , just an employer sponsored plan where typically matching occurs and its tax advantaged. Its your money and your employers money contributed into an account. Its not like canadian CPP which is more equivalent to your Social Security plan.

In-fact, if you are a Canadian not utilizing your RRSP you are the moron in most cases, and I'd say the same if you were American not using a 401K especially if its an employer sponsored program, you are just giving up free money.

This post was edited by SBD on Feb 3 2025 09:54am

I’m glad you asked! In the US your 401k money is usually sponsored by a plan administrator. This plan administrator is usually a 3rd party entity. That entity is commonly a bank or securities holder.

When the US has to default on their debt (WHEN not IF) the most common entities to receive bail outs will cease to get them. What are the most common entities bailed out? Bank and Security holders. What is often part of the bail outs? “Go ahead and dip into your holdings and we will give you the money back when/if that person gets to retire”.

Yes. They dip into your 401k in the US without you knowing. This is one of many things I learned being married to an area branch administrator for 15 years.

(I dunno how it operates in Canada. That part I can’t speak on.)

Social Security is a socialist policy??

This is some pretty big tinfoil hat stuff. 401ks are invested in assets and backed by said assets. If some brokerage goes bust, your asset holds just get transferred to another brokerage. To my knowledge 401k's like Canadian accounts have insurance on them as well for any type of dipping into your 401k and losing it.

Assets could go bust, sure that happens all the time, that's just investment selection though and does not make 401Ks a bad investment, any investment would be bad via bad investment selection.

Huh? How is it socialist? It’s their money. At least 50% of it is depending on the 401k.

A lot of us were not aware of this and already have a lot in our 401ks. Just because we were lied to doesn't necessarily make someone an idiot if they think they're doing what is best to invest in their future.

Naw it’s reality. Who pays the money when the money isn’t there? I’m not sure how you think this is a conspiracy when the wait time on Social Security benefits has already tripled admittedly by the money not being available.

The banks in the US go “bankrupt” almost bi yearly and the government (who also owes a lot of money) somehow bails them out every time. Where do you think the money is coming from? It’s borrowed. The borrowers borrow from other borrowers and holdings.

(The fastest easiest route to money is borrowing from things that already exists)

This post was edited by MadMan87 on Feb 3 2025 10:28am

Too many people, have a misunderstanding of what socialism is. Socialism, is a broad ideology and a lot of people do not understand what the economic policy of socialism is. Or they know that and they confuse that version of socialism with socialist policies. It's easy to confuse market socialism with its other interpretations.

You seem to have a lot to say about 401ks and how they're stupid and anyone who is relying on them is stupid so could you please give an example of an alternative? What would you recommend we do instead?

Saving yourself. Simply put. You can do the same thing they do.

Honestly. Real estate investment is the safest. In the US very few land opportunities will depreciate. I bought a small one bedroom condemned house a few years ago. Tore it down. The lot alone is worth 10x what I paid 5 years ago.