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Olen then translates the doublespeak of traditional personal finance institutions to reveal lots more hot air. There are mutual funds and retirement plans promoted for their safety that actually charge fees so high they can cut an account's value by 28 percent over time (that's from a U.S. Labor Department report about 401(k) plans). She convincingly argues that the fad for "empowering" women to manage their own finances ends up doing the opposite. Olen sees even financial literacy education
-- with the simplistic message that security comes from planning and self-control
-- as a "myth," especially given that much of it is sponsored by usurious lenders reaping the considerable benefit of brand loyalty from their students. And forget variable annuities. Just forget you ever heard of them. Olen's biggest gripes are that no one -- not the policy makers, not do-gooders and not the industry whose advice she conveyed to hundreds of her Los Angeles Times subjects
-- is addressing income inequality and that American public policy offers little real support for low- and moderate-income Americans. But the part where she offers alternatives and outlines the new thinking she'd like to see gets short shrift. And that makes her incisive criticism of the personal finance world sound like an intellectual exercise. Her closing observation, for instance, could have enriched her analysis throughout: She notes that the era of personal responsibility and economic growth that we're asked to harken back to as we get our financial houses in order actually was an era when many government and corporate financial supports first matured. Maybe, just maybe, the rise of pensions and employer-sponsored health insurance, the G.I. bill, welfare as we knew it, and the building of the interstate highway system weren't drags on prosperity. Could it be that they contributed to Americans' personal financial security as they bolstered the economy as a whole? ___ Online:
[Associated
Press;
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