Following up on the previous, what I mean by this is an attitude that I took away from the speech. I know the President didn't mean it that way, but it's like this: There are millions of skilled professionals in all manner of trades---school teachers, construction workers, factory hands---who can't find work. Some of them have been performing their jobs for decades, and it's really not fair to lecture people on the need to re-train themselves for the "jobs of the 21st Century" because a bunch of criminal banks destroyed their businesses, cratered their local tax base, and stole their homes. Most people who lost their jobs in the recession did so through no fault of their own, so don't ask them pull up their own bootstraps. There's still a critical need for school teachers and construction workers and factory hands, after all, so push for a jobs program for them, and if the jobs simply can't be created, pay them a guaranteed annual income. We got big problems in this country. Little-ball solutions won't cut it.
The "MyRA" proposal---which is what exactly, a somewhat less risky 401(k)?---was even more offensive. If Social Security isn't enough to retire on, you expand Social Security, not supplement it with a program that the neediest people will never be able to access. That's because tens of millions of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck. They can't afford to save for retirement because at the end of the month, they have no money to save. What good is this program going to be for them? As with 401(k)s, the only people who will get rich off it will be the fund managers who collect their quarterly fees.
Then again, this assumes that these are serious policy proposals and not some poll-tested talking points that will boost the overnight approval ratings. I know that sounds awfully cynical, but I can't think of any other reason why such ineffectual half-measures would be trotted out in a major policy speech except that the President's team either (a) knows that their time to change the outcome of the game has long since passed, or (b) they don't think we have a serious jobs/income problem.
---Baron V
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