>Why should retirement accounts get invested in anything but government bonds and index funds?
Here (somewhere near the end) Mr. Blank says that this is what got the silicon valley rolling. When pension funds were allowed to invest, control of the valley switched from the military to the VC funds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
Probably another reason is that bonds and index funds do not yield enough to keep the pension funds going; people now live a longer life on average, so they need to pay more on each pension; so its all screwed up.
Everything is screwed up; now that probably that has something to do with the fact that energy prices & commodities are high; there is less energy to go round, so other creative means are found to create 'wealth'; these tricks increasingly have something to do with extracting something from pocket A and transferring it to pocket B.
And the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) has lowered yields on fixed income to next to nothing. No longer are there less-risky investments that yield anything near the rate of inflation.
Here (somewhere near the end) Mr. Blank says that this is what got the silicon valley rolling. When pension funds were allowed to invest, control of the valley switched from the military to the VC funds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
Probably another reason is that bonds and index funds do not yield enough to keep the pension funds going; people now live a longer life on average, so they need to pay more on each pension; so its all screwed up.
Everything is screwed up; now that probably that has something to do with the fact that energy prices & commodities are high; there is less energy to go round, so other creative means are found to create 'wealth'; these tricks increasingly have something to do with extracting something from pocket A and transferring it to pocket B.