Comments on: Apparently I’m a Socialist for Suggesting That People Should Save in 401(k)s and IRAs

By: Paradigm Life

Paradigm Life — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:28:16 +0000

no, 401k and IRAs are smart. Anyone who wants to retire… ever.. should have one.

By: John

John — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:27:10 +0000

I agree that the 401K and IRAs are the way to go for retirement savings, although it does not come without risk. I’m not talking about less than average returns, but the fact that the government has the ability to change tax structure on these vehicles with little resistance could have an impact on your planned retirement income. Would the government grandfather-in people who have already invested in 401Ks and IRAs when making changes? Who knows.

By: Bill M

Bill M — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:20:13 +0000

Most people are wealthy these days because they invested in their 401(k) and IRAs, not because they were given money.

By: B Simple

B Simple — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:06:42 +0000

That is a very interesting post. How is telling people to invest in 401k or IRA wrong. We need people to save for retirement and these are great ways to do which deferred your taxes. I would hate to see where he is investing his money.

By: jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity

jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:36:31 +0000

I don’t like people who do a lot of “what if” thinking. Plan for what you know and react to when you learn about things you didn’t expect… what else can you be expected to do? Calling you a socialist and claiming ever government program has failed and will always fail puts this person in the category of “lunatic.”

By: pays to live green

pays to live green — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:53:39 +0000

Before proclaiming something like 401ks and IRAs are bad, the emailer should have done more research. If anything, they tend to be non-socialistic as you are not giving the government your money that you normally would have or giving less, especially when it comes to the Roth IRA

By: steve smith

steve smith — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:57:40 +0000

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By: Matt SF

Matt SF — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:10:11 +0000

Who put peyote in this guy’s coffee? I would argue 401k’s and IRA’s are more capitalist in their basic design since they were created to allow the worker to break off from traditional pension plans. Am I totally off-base here?

By: Lazy Man and Money

Lazy Man and Money — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:09:34 +0000

It seems to me that he was reading something where you proposed putting public money into 401Ks and IRAs – at least from his e-mail. I didn’t get the impression that he believes the current 401Ks and IRAs work that way.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:43:01 +0000

Hank, the IBC stands for Infinite Banking Concept. It was developed in the 90s by some guy to use whole life insurance to fund most of the expenses in your life.

Basic premise is to get people to pump as much money as they can into a whole life policy for a number of years being careful not to go over the limit that would convert it into a modified endowment. Then, you treat the cash value of this policy as your own bank, borrowing from it when you need money, and then repay yourself.

The idea is that you maintain life insurance while creating a large cash cushion that you can tap into and avoid borrowing money from a bank and paying them interest, instead paying it back to yourself.

While it has some merits, especially for higher income individuals, it’s more or less a great sales pitch used by insurance salesmen to get people to buy a whole life policy.

Anyway, glad you asked, since this is probably something not very many people are familiar with. It also gives me a great idea for an upcoming post.