Look at it this way. Pensions are being eliminated and replaced with 401k's. That means that the government needs to do a better job of protecting small investors from computer trading, derivatives, and other risky components to the stock market. If we have another bad recession, people will starve.
I'm almost in favor of a Federal Reserve mutual fund that guarantees a safe return, but provides better yield than T-Bills and T-Notes. Something too big to fail, and clubs the stock market sharks.
But that's the
problem. We have to stop this insanity of "I'm a helpless child - government protect me".
An investor is responsible for understanding the risks. If a person is too lazy to take the time, they get
exactly what they deserve. We need to get government the hell out of everything except for the specific 18 enumerated powers the Constitution authorizes them to be involved in.
We disagree on this issue. I've seen in the last few years how government whores let the Wall Street crooks (Madoff as an example, there are many others) rip investors off. There is no other pension option than stocks and bonds if all we have are 401k's instead of "defined benefit plans".
I want the SEC and the Fed to actively police the stock market, and I want transaction taxes to pay for it. Buy and hold needs to be the only investment option.
I'm not sure if you were in the market when it went to 7,000 but investors lost trillions thru no fault of their own. The government needs to keep investing legitimate, since all of our pensions depend on it.