Nevin's Data "Points"

This weekend most of America will undergo a rather painful change. I’m talking about the legally mandated move to Daylight Saving Time (for most of us). That’s right, at 2 a.m. on March 12, clocks around the nation will “spring ahead” to 3 a.m., reversing course from last fall when the move was to “fall back” to standard time. It’s a “movement” laid at the feet of none other than Benjamin Franklin who, in what’s been characterized as a “satirical” letter to the editor of The Journal of Paris in 1784 pitched “the economy of using sunshine instead of candles.” Mr. Franklin may have been satirical, but the economic rationale for this artificial time contrivance lingers on. It was certainly a factor in 1916 when Germany saw adjusting the time as helpful to its war effort.  Great Britain embraced the same logic the following year, and by March 1918 [i] the (now at war) United States was on board — well, sort of. It only lasted till the end of that war, was picked up ag...

That’s the premise behind a recent column by Morningstar’s John Rekenthaler, who writes that “the plans are as good as they can be under the current framework – and that's not good enough.” I had the pleasure of meeting John a number of years back – and I’ve been keeping up with his writing ever since. His columns are thoughtful and thought-provoking, his perspectives rational and well-reasoned, his commentary nearly always not only interesting, but entertaining. But on this one  – well, let’s just say we disagree. John acknowledges that his views on the 401(k) have “evolved,” and that while he has long been in the camp that called for improvements in the current system, a “defender” of the 401(k) – but now, apparently, he’s calling for an “overhaul.” ‘Leaky’ Assumptions He doesn’t fault the current system for its perceived shortcomings; he notes that the 401(k) wasn’t designed to be a solution for the general public’s retirement, saw the growth in the 1980s...