(The video below takes just under two minutes to view, the transcript can be read in about a minute.)

Let's talk about your retirement. You responsibly save for decades, your investments help the real economy of this country grow, and as a reward, you eventually reap the benefits of that economic growth in the form of a prosperous retirement.

Wonderful theory.

When we look not at paper wealth, and not at stock or real estate bubbles, but the real US economy, then over the last 50 years economic growth has averaged about 2% per year per person, after adjusting for inflation.

Now here's a fascinating coincidence. The rule of thumb figure is that total financial industry revenues average about 2% of assets under management. So for every $100 in an investment account, about two dollars will end up sticking to the fingers of the investment industry over the course of the year.

What a coincidence! We responsibly save to be rewarded with our share of economic growth, but the annual financial fees exactly cancel out the annual growth and we're left with... what?

Meanwhile, in exchange for managing let's say $10 trillion in retirement account investments, Wall Street pulls out $200 billion every year. That's $200 billion they get whether the economy is growing or shrinking.

Now logically, this would lead to a situation where tens of millions of retirement investors wait patiently for the wealth that has been promised to them but never quite arrives, while in the meantime every year a relatively small group of people enjoy extraordinarily good incomes on Wall Street.

It sure is a good thing this is just some silly coincidence, isn't it?

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