The problem with defined contributions plans as I see it is that the vast majority of working people lack the financial sophistication required to invest for their retirement. They are consigned to investment company sharks by their ignorance and the limited choices available to them in their company 401(k) choices.

Harvey, how does the average person taking your prescription save for their own retirement? Do they know about index funds? Do they get idea of changing the equity/bond ratio as they approach retirement? If they look for advisers can they avoid the sharks? I say that they cannot begin to match the returns and stability provided by professional managers of defined benefit programs. Do you see it differently?

The corporations were allowed to strip workers of defined benefit plans, moving liabilities off their books, and giving employees the ‘freedom’ to chart their own financial course. It is like handing someone a parachute and kicking them out of a plane for the first time so that they may have the ‘freedom’ of learning how to reach the ground without perishing. Those stripped of defined benefit plans are angry that their employees, government workers, have not been been rendered naked as well. Understandable, but not pretty.