What would be a better way to invest into one's retirement int the US?

Yer a wizard, 'arry! You found the problem again! Here, follow along:

- PENSION used to be: this thing where the money was invisible to you and would pay a dividend forever so long as you're alive, with spousal benefits when you die and all that great stuff

- PENSION is now: this thing that you got pennies on the dollar for because fuck you, working man

- 401(k) used to be: a retirement plan that you and your company poured money into and then the money would pour out when it was time to work on your ship-in-a-bottle collection

- 401(k) is now: a retirement plan whose value dropped by 50% in 2000 because you were tech heavy, another 50% in 2008 because you were finance-heavy and sat there like a turd from 2010 until last year because no amount of Fed Reserve gas on the Stock Market bonfire did anything

- IRA used to be: a self-guided meditation in building a healthy retirement through your ability to make money on damn near any stock you bought

- IRA is now: every bit as shitty as the 401(k) except you can only put 1/6th as much money into it which, fukkit, it's not like there's much to put in anyway

Of course, you can buy real estate with your IRA. Or cash it out with heavy penalties to try and make it rich some other way. That skunked the shit out of a lot of people in 2008, too - instead of being underwater on one house they're underwater on five and their retirement was wrapped up in a bunch of assets that depreciated 40% and also cost more than they could afford.

Keep in mind: these are 'boomer options here. Punk-ass kids in their 20s and 30s don't have a lot of exposure to any of these options. They've been encouraged to "freelance" and "gig economy" their way to success and unless they've taken it on themselves to set up a self-directed IRA, they have no savings anyway. Which means they aren't pumping money into the market. Which means Bob and Sue's stocks aren't increasing in value because there aren't a bunch of whipper-snappers buying into the market.

Also keep in mind: all these options are confusing and Americans get no education in finance whatsoever. We're left to figure it out on our own. The guy who managed the retirement stuff at the first company I worked at out of college thought Mexicans spoke Latin; "why else would they call them Latinos?" You're talking business majors and accounting majors who didn't go on to an MBA; the guys who picked their majors based on having Fridays off are giving you investment advice.

Have we set the scene? We've got a bunch of earnest mutherfuckers who, for the past 40 years, have done exactly what everyone told them to do. They've saved as best they can. They lost their shirts several times because they went with the crowd (safety in numbers after all!). The basic marketing ploy for financial services in the US is "you're a fucking moron, do what we say" or "this shit is entirely too simple, even a fucking moron can figure it out" yet they still can't retire the way they were promised.

What would be a better way to invest into one's retirement int the US?

Let's say Hunter found out about this cool thing called Bitcoin in 2014. He bought one for $300. It went up to $600. Cool! It went down to $300. Lame! But it's still worth $300. Then let's say he heard about this other cool thing called Ethereum. he can turn his one Bitcoin into Ethereum at a 2000:1 ratio. So he does.

If you're Hunter's dad, you've been scraping your entire life and you're not sure if you're going to be able to retire on your $172,000. If you're Hunter's dad, that $300 of your money made your son two point two million dollars.

Do you sense the raw, naked unfairness of it all? Can you taste the anger at the whole of cryptocurrency? Never mind that it's entirely beyond your ken; it's so deeply, divisively unfair.

Google IPO'd at $85 13 years ago. With splits, one share at IPO (which you couldn't buy for less than $400; it was a freak show) would be worth about $2200 right now. And if you were the 'boomer that pulled that off you're the envy of all your friends.

If you bought $85 of Bitcoin last January it'd be worth over $1000 right now, "death of Bitcoin" or not. And if you bought Bitcoin last January you're probably a millennial.

Millennials kill everything. Because if you can't blame the millennials, you have to blame yourself... and the 'boomers really don't see what they can be blamed for. It's not like they did this. It just happened to them.

And that's got them so pissed off and scared that they can't even pay attention to how much more fucked the millennials are.