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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IceShark who wrote (58509)	5/4/1999 4:27:00 PM
From: MythMan	Respond to of 132070

>>Bears are DOOMED<< Actually they are finished. They were doomed from the start. Time to dip!

To: IceShark who wrote (58509)	5/4/1999 4:34:00 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Ice, >>The 401k die was already cast before this bubble happened so your theory is moot from a practical standpoint.<< I don't dispute that 401Ks were already a growing phenomenon. In fact for many years I wished I could get control over my own pension money because I was certain that I could do better than the company that I was working for in terms of investment returns. I feel the same about Social Security now. My point is that there seems to be an acceleration of the change and I am questioning the motive. (They are in the process of changing the very major corporation at which I am currently contracted.) My gut tells me that the public has no real clue that now is perhaps the worst time in American history to take control of that money because at a minimum returns are guaranteed to be lower than historical levels due to the higher than ever stock prices. And a worst case scenario involves very significant losses. If companies were still in charge of the money, those benefits on which they are basing all sorts of life decisions would be the companys' responsibility. I am questioning the motive of the companies that are forcing the change (as the one I am working at is). My guess is that they are smart enough to know that the current environment leaves them wide open to risk so they are trying to shift it to the employees. (There may be other savings also) I think the overfunding issue might be true for some. But I have read cases of companies that are removing the excess returns and flowing them into income to make earnings look better. (Lucent is one) And most of the companies I have looked are not overfunded or if they are it is by a very small amount. Wayne