Though he left the company he founded years ago, John Bogle of Vanguard fame still makes headlines. The Wall Street Journal reported on a presentation Bogle gave recently calling for a “Federal Retirement Savings Board” that would approve all investments that retirement plans could use and tax limits for the highest-paid executives. Bogle also called IRAs “fragile instruments” because withdrawals are too easy to make, but stopped short of endorsing mandatory retirement savings.
But is today’s retirement crisis the result of inappropriate investment products? Should the government substitute itself for the market in determining which investments will result in better outcomes? And while Bogle may be correct that high-paid executives may not need tax breaks to motivate them to save, what’s the incentive to keep the company’s plan going once the executives hit their limit? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
