» Posted by Martin Weil on October 18, 2009

When I went to business school (way back when), one of my classmates was an actuary whose main complaint was that public policy, by encouraging a move from guaranteed pensions to IRAs and 401ks, had transferred too much risk to individuals and that many would end up losing. Now come Time magazine and Doug Short on the same bandwagon.

Says Short, "Unfortunately, a substantial portion of the population isn't dealing effectively with this transfer. ... I see the IRA, 401(k) and the like as a social experiment of staggering proportions. A few decades from now history will tell us whether these plans generally succeeded or failed. Unfortunately, failure will not be limited to the households living in poverty. It will impact the entire economy. Thus, regardless of our personal values, beliefs and politics, the risk is indeed a shared risk."

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