Eyeing Your Pension: Are 401(k)s safe from congressional Democrats? Excerpt:
If you have a 401(k) or equivalent retirement plan, you’ve probably been watching nervously the past few weeks as your nest egg has shrunken owing to the current turmoil in the markets.Well, it could be worse. But don’t take heart, for what we mean is it could get worse. The market turmoil has some politicians on Capitol Hill eyeing the end of the 401(k) as we know it. . .
A 55-year-old who lost 20% of his 401(k) because of the recent stock market decline was investing more aggressively than he should have, given his age. Ghilarducci proposes to reward this imprudence in exchange for dramatically limiting everyone’s ability to take risks (and enjoy the corresponding rewards) and for greatly increasing government control of Americans’ retirement funds.
It is by no means a certainty that Congress or a President Obama would embrace such a proposal, but this is a direction in which things may move if the Democrats make big gains next month.
See previous posts on this topic here, here, and here.
UPDATE: Also, from US News & World Report: “Would Obama, Dems Kill 401(k) Plans?“:
I hate to use the “S” word, but the American government would never do something as, well, socialist as seize private pension funds, right? This is exactly what cash-strapped Argentina just did in the name of protecting workers’ retirement accounts (Efharisto, Fausta’s Blog). Now, even Uncle Sam isn’t that stupid, but some Democrats might try something almost as loopy: kill 401(k) plans.