Hi, KP.
The answer is real investment, not a Ponzi scheme. But let me ask you a question. Before the advent of 401ks (which are mainly a way for corporations to cut costs and shed responsibility for investments), how did most pensions work? How do most state pension plans work now? Did/do they leave it to each employee to manage his/her retirement funds, and thus future, when most lack either the time, talent or inclination to do so? (one of the three, not all three at once.) What is wrong with the government either managing a large investment fund, or at least making sure that only well qualified professionals handle folks' personal accounts, and that the suckers are given an even break for once? Except for those who favor a Darwinian social order and don't much care if the less fit don't survive, there should be nothing wrong with that approach. But the conservatives all reject those rational approaches out of hand because they see government as part of the problem, where liberals see it as being at least part of a potential solution.
As for Greenspan causing the crash, the Fed drained liquidity from the markets after the Y2k deadline had past, and that was the impetus for the plunge. And if you think my characterization of his views on what he saw as "irrational exuberence" are off the mark, I suggest you plow your way through some of his testimony to Congress in 1998 and 1999, intended to slow or reverse a bull market he saw as dangerous not only becuase of overextension, but specifically because of the "excess buying power" (translation: money) it put in the hands of the average American. Well, with the stock market crash (it was worse than Black Monday 1987, it just took a lot longer), outsourcing, and the loss of three million jobs, no need to worry about that "problem!"
-- Dave K.
Speakeasy Moderator
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