Some eight years ago, I was at a presentation by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle at a business journalists' conference in Denver, and when his PowerPoint crashed, and he had to use transparencies on a vintage 20th-century overheard projector. After the presentation, he let me keep them, and they still serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone for me for enlightened investing.
Investors who were paying attention got a cold slap of reality this spring when the progressive think tank Demos released a study showing that the median household could expect to pay more than $150,000 in 401(k) fees over the course of a working lifetime, or about a third of potential investment returns. What's more, about two-thirds of 401(k) investors had no idea that they were paying such fees.
The newest GDP release shows an increase of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012, down from a 1.9 percent growth in the first quarter and three percent growth in 2011. But, as Demos continually asks in our Beyond GDP work: What exactly is GDP measuring?
How will Marissa Mayer’s pregnancy play out? Will the new Yahoo chief executive find that it’s not so easy to power through a maternity leave? Or will she spend just a few short weeks at home — working all the while, as she promised in an interview — and thus set the bar high for future pregnant executives of Fortune 500 companies? What should the new “it” mom-to-be do?
One of the big questions environmentalists struggle with is whether there should be a price on nature. For some things, like the cost savings that are realized through cleaner air or water, there is a rote calculation that can be done to price out environmental and health benefits. But, if you think of nature as an independent entity having a worth beyond what it can provide to humans, how do you put a price on it? How much is the Amazon River or the Himalayan mountain range worth?
The think tank Demos has been doing a really stellar job commemorating the anniversary of Michael Harrington’s “The Other America” — as mentioned in my poverty charts post yesterday — and their best item so far is this series of beautiful interactive charts illustrating the state of poverty in America:
Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, documenting – among the many ravages of poverty – that millions of children in the richest country on earth went to bed hungry every night. His book inspired two Democratic presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, to launch a war on poverty, then estimated at more than 20 percent of the population.
One of the main reason alternative indicators are important is that they take things that we value on a visceral level, like the environment, and put them into the universal language of capital.
American workers are being ripped off by excessive retirement plan fees — which may force them to work longer or live less comfortably in their golden years, according to a recent study.
For the average US household, the high fees drain about $155,000 from their 401(k) accounts over their lifetimes, the study found.
In one example highlighted in the study, a two-wage-earner household with a median income for their age group contributed an average of 7 percent a year to their 401(k) plan over 40 years.
Ahead of Rio+20, advocates are coalescing around the idea that we need to change the way we measure what is important to achieve true sustainable development. Currently countries measure economic growth, which is often equated with progress, through GDP. However, growth in GDP is increasingly not resulting in progress.
Hmmm … 401(k) plans can help you save money for retirement, but they many also cost you more than you realize. According to a new study from research firm Demos, the average American couple pay nearly $155,000 in 401(k) fees in the course of building up their proverbial nest egg; wealthier couples could pay nearly $278,000. These fees can reduce 401(k) savings by an average of 30 percent.
With hidden 401(k) fees back in the headlines, financial advisers say that in many cases it just doesn’t pay to leave your money in these plans—especially once you retire or switch employers. Recent findings from Demos, a research group, include this zinger: hidden fees may claim 30% of your savings.
A recent headline in the Los Angeles Times managed to rile both supporters and detractors of the 401(k) plan industry’s opaque and often excessive fee structure. Citing new research, The Times asserted that “401(k) Fees Could Reduce Average Nest Egg by 30%.” There is definitely a problem. But that seems extreme.
Portability, ownership and innovation are three key features of 401(k) plans that make them worth keeping. That was the case laid out by Paul Schott Stevens at a "town hall" meeting in Los Angeles this afternoon. The remarks lay out a defense of the mutual fund-heavy savings vehicle even as the plans have come under attack for the fees charged by mutual fund firms.