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To: NOW who wrote (40365)	5/28/2002 12:16:15 AM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 209892

Its funny that the data only goes to 1998 in the guy's study. A year later the big concern was the "wealth effect" and how to contain it. I think the numbers would be different if done today, considering that the middle class, as defined by that guy's study, has most of their assets in real estate rather than the stock market. Plus the boomers are now in receiving mode because their parents are passing away leaving them a couple trillion in wealth. It's silly to pine for defined benefit plans considering what a mobile work force we now have. People need portable pension plans and while I have my own issues with 401s because of the limited number of options people sometimes have, they are at least portable. Its those defined benefit plans that helped sink the steel industry in this country. What good is a great retirement plan if the company isn't around to pay it out? Plus remember the bad ole 1980s of the corporate raiders? They'd do a leveraged buyout and then raid the nice fat pension plans. Then there was the fifty year olds that somehow got laid off before they could get to the official retirement age. If you work for yourself you can still do a defined benefit plan, I had the option when I set up my own plan. Lots of doctors and other high income professionals have them so they can shelter income beyond the 25% ceiling of a defined contribution plan. Truth is that no matter how many options people are given to save and invest, certain people will do it and others won't. It doesn't matter which income bracket either. I've met people who have extremely modest incomes who have managed to save enormous percentages of their incomes and have great investment gains, while others who make ten times the income that have a negative net worth when you add in the liability side.