Kids, 401(k)s and Water

What do kids, 401(k)s and water have in common? Most people don't want to take care of their own kids, 401(k)s, and water. Instead, most people expect to use other people's kids, 401(k)s and water for their retirement.

A lot people don't think their retirement depends on the the quality of how they raise their kids or how they maintain their 401(k)s. A lot of people say they are not going to depend on their kids in their retirement. What happens when everybody raises their kids to take care nobody? Nobody takes care of old people. What happens when people avoid taking care of their own company because they can buy 401(k) investment in other people's companies? No company is worth investment and nobody has a retirement.

Both kids and 401(k)s are like local water. A lot of people are dependent on bottle water because there is no good local water. When everyone says they can trash their local water then there is no distant water for drinking. Why?  The locals in the distant waterhole, watershed or water system have trashed their local water. When nobody takes care of their kids, 401(k)s or water, nobody has retirements or water.

Analogies:

1. 401(k)s are like slot machines which people play, moving from one to another with the house taking a percentage of each "ka-ching" while not repairing and improving the odds on any of the machines payouts.

Notes:

1. 401(k) fools fueled NASDAQ. Instead of company-defined pensions, workers gave up retirement to gamble with their pension funds.
2. 401(k) fueled CEO's mansions, boats, horses and whores.
3. 529 college saving plans will do to education what 401k's did to employment pensions.
4. 401(k) plan holders are like the budding young gentlemen who are told they will have more dates if they buy all the girlie magazines. After reading all the articles about the woman of their dream (and not noticing the pictures), they looked in their pockets and found no money for homecoming dream.
5. 401(k): More flexibility increases liquidity and loose cannons.
6. Talker Bush wants to increase use of 401ks --040122.