Mind if I ask you a question?  Do you invest any of your pension plan locally?  In local businesses, real estate, or infrastructure? 

I am watching Fox Business and the talking heads with Neil are discussing Obama/McCain on taxes and pensions.  It was the pension discussion that created this economic insight.  In your 401K, IRA, or Employer pension how much is invested locally?  I am not talking about with the advisor down the street, but where the capital is deployed that creates income producing assets and employment opportunities.  Ever wonder how many people have taken a slice of the cash to and from the income producing asset?

If you could invest in a local apartment building with your IRA or 401K, would you?  or do you prefer a REIT or a mutual fund of REITS?  Add up the pension contributions of your community and ask yourself how would that money be invested locally?  How many jobs would it create?  Would it perform as well as the SP 500?   The current pension system takes local capital, funnels it through a fraudulent financial system rewarding the corrupt and crooked and fails to meet the needs of the retiree in the end leaving them dependent on the Government for their existence.  Our retirement system sucks.  I hope it is not too strong to say the nationalization of pension plans through the tax system by directing us to the public markets is nothing less than feeding working Americans to the wolves of Wall Street. 

Working Americans need and deserve the ability to invest our retirements in local opportunities other than CD's at the local bank, Savings and Loan or Credit Union.  I hope the next President addresses the pension and retirement system and kills off some of the leaches.  Fees are killing the retirement systems.  There are too many hands are in the cookie jar and the jar is not transparent.