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Getting Personal: Retirement
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On tap this week: All about retirement plans -- what's the best way to handle a new retirement plan, is it a good idea to create one for a spouse and what happens when you go over your contribution limits.
Alex's comments are on the mark. It is not about TV having an opinion or not, it is the rhetorical questions she asked on the phone leading to the conclusion that there could not possibly be any reason for limiting the amount contributed to a 401(k) that received a tax advantage. That either was ignorance or a lack of any research or both. Serious journalism which we expect MPM to exercise does demand some effort to discover if there might be another side to the story.
Tess Vigeland remarked again about how she does not understand why the government limits how much you can save for retirement. This is obviously a big issue for her, she gets a little emotional about it, and it has come up before. Given all that emotion, it seems to me should stop reporting on it, if she wants to be considered a journalist, and not a commentator.
In fact, as we all know that the Government does not limit how much you can save for retirement. They do limit the tax benefit, but you don't need a tax benefit in order to save - and to his credit Chris Farrell tried to make this point gently, but he has done that before and it clearly hasn't worked. Moreover, it is obvious why that limit is there - you don't want people sheltering millions of dollars a year, when nowhere near that amount is needed for retirement. Certainly, if TV believes you should be able to shelter as much as you want, she has plenty of company - along with people who "can't understand" why the government limits how much money you can leave to your children (which it doesn't) or why it limits how much money you can give to charity (which it doesn't). There is plenty of room in our media landscape for people with those opinions to make their points, but it isn't journalism, and TV, and Marketplace Money, have to decide exactly what endeavor they are involved in.
Personally, I think the present rules are pretty generous. If you sock away $5000/yr for 40 years an 8% return will net you about $2 million. Most people could retire on that. I realize not everyone starts saving in their early 20s, but there are catch-up provisions as well. And the limit is not $5000, not by a long shot, I am just trying to be conservative here. But that is just my opinion.
Listeners think of Marketplace Money as serious journalism. People who call in claim they are going to follow your advice. Sometimes you are going to give bad advice - I have disagreed with your advice on several occasions, but that's the way it goes. A certain amount of commentary is entirely appropriate, when it is clearly labeled as such. But injecting your views in an emotional way that diminishes anyone who disagrees with you doesn't belong in public radio.
At least, not in my opinion.
Thanks for your comments, Alex. Your opinion that public radio program host shouldn't air his or her views on a subject is food for thought. I'm not sure that I'd agree that reporters or hosts expressing their opinions "isn't journalism" however. It may not be *objective journalism, but then what journalism really is entirely objective? You'll be pleased to hear that's a question often discussed here. As for your feeling that the "present rules" on tax benefits for retirement are pretty generous, good for you! I hope you're making the most of the breaks. But may I ask where you're getting 8 percent a year? That's quite a return, even in a good economy!
