h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mudhooks, when I was in my twenties I was a dewy-eyed idealist. In my thirties I was disillusioned. In my forties, I simply ignored politics as much of the time as I could. Now I'm just plain worried. The world is getting worse and worse. Politicians (who are capable of skillfilly mediating between different groups) can do a lot of good in troubled times, but either get it wrong altogether, or don't realize that they could get it right.

Take the social safety net (this was Ronald Reagan's term for everything from Social Security to welfare to Medicare). American businesses (not just the huge behemoths, but also the Mom-and-Pop enterprises and everybody in between) were concerned about their competitiveness, so the Reagan and Bush administrations allowed them to whittle away at their pension obligations. Every year, more employees are covered by IRA's and 401(k) plans, in which the participant takes on *all* the risks. (Under the older pension plans, the risks were carried by the corporations) Currently, the Shrub-in-charge wants to put some of the Social Security money into the stock market.

Now, I'm not knocking IRA's and 401(k) plans. In fact, I have longstanding investments in both types. My objection is to the unequal results that people will be getting when they reach the time for retirement. The difference between the top quintile and the bottom quintile in terms of performance is pretty big, according to people who have studied these plans. Many, perhaps most, workers do not have an inkling of how to invest. They suffer from what behavioral scientists refer to as overconfidence in their investing abilities, until a bear market comes along, at which point large numbers of them take their money out of stocks (usually at huge losses) and put the money into low-risk/low-return vehicles such as CD's and money-market funds. Ironically, that is the exact point at which they should be beefing up their stock holdings, not dismantling them. The result is likely to be widespread misery among older people.

Politicians generally have no clue how to invest, so they are likely to give America a very bad system.

I get sick to my stomach thinking about it sometimes.

"Because their stance on issues better serves Canadians than those of the Conservatives."

....or perhaps because the Conservatives are the greater of two evils....

You have weevils in Canada?