Trainwreck article on 401(k) loans/early cashouts

[the fixer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/401k-breaches-undermining-retirement-security-for-millions/2013/01/14/f54a0e90-5e70-11e2-8acb-ab5cb77e95c8_story.html

I don't know why but, like a car accident that's just so awful you can't look away, I just couldn't stop reading the thing and the comments. Even worse was that the author doesn't understand this stuff: the original version of the article couldn't even get the tax treatment of early withdrawals correct. It originally said you owed capital gains taxes instead of income tax on the full amount withdrawn.

The commenters are worse, everyone blaming either Republicans or Democrats for the problem with a few antimustachian gems thrown in (along the lines of "I had to take out all my money after the economy crashed in 2008!"). WaPo comments are usually like that, though: it's so polarized that you can't talk about solutions because no one can even agree on what the problem is.

I do think this informs a discussion over Obama's proposal to require companies to do opt-out contributions to IRAs for their employees. You could do that and get people to save for their retirement, sure, but that wouldn't stop people from raiding the money. They'd end up worse off than they would be otherwise thanks to the 10% penalty.

[COguy]

Oh those comments are enticing.  Just wasted 10 minutes reading them.  It's funny how folks who read mass media for their news fire off the same comments for every article.   blah blah Republicans...blah blah Obama...blah blah Debt Ceiling...

I am glad I have these forums to peruse so I can read the writings of people who are genuinely trying to think for themselves and never really have to click over to those other sites. 

So, maybe every 401k loan or cash out should come with a punch in the face and a copy of all of the posts from the MMM blog.

[marty998]

A lot of the contributors are probably paid party hacks. Happens all the time, political parties will hire people to write comments on every article/blog in every major online media source in order to denigrate the other side.

For some comments its obvious they didn't even read the article, they just write whatever partisan crap they want no matter the contents of the post.