Most importantly by far they allow zero access during working years and generally only an annuity during retirement.

The problem with pensions is that they don’t exist in the private sector anymore and they aient commin back. Pensions worked great when people started working at the plant after high-school put in 45 years (during which the equity market returned 9.5% cagr) and then died at 70.

The government is already in the retirement business via social security and the federal employees thrift plan.

The next step is to mandate retirement savings participation for all workers. Yes it’s another ugly intrusion into the private lives of citizens. The alternative is to continue further down the current path where fewer and fewer prudent hard workers-savers shoulder an ever growing burden of supporting their newcardriving,eatouting, disneyvacationing, $150/monthcellphoning peers.

For truly smart hardworking freedom lovers like TFF (perhaps 10% of the population) I suppose we could offer an opt out provision after completing an online personal finance /retirement planning course.

(1) Pension plans enjoy tax deferral. Might make them attractive again? Is much to be said for collectivizing retirement planning and distributing the longevity risk.

(2) If retirement accounts didn’t get tax preference, and mortgages weren’t tax advantaged, there would be no incentive for your typical middle class family to borrow against their home to “save” for retirement. The resulting deleveraging could be unpleasant for the bankers who make a living off that behavior.