Tesla skips 401(k) match for third straight year

Add all that together, plus all the smaller companies that also have great plans (like Netflix) and we're talking over a million employees in tech that all get the effective benefit of the company contributing 50% of the IRS personal contribution limit. I would call that common.

That said, most of these billionaires have gotten there because they were able to abuse some part of the capitalistic society. The "quality product for a fair price" bit is warped in some way due to monopoly power, exploiting their workers, etc.

Which is why a lot of people really dislike the Waltons, Bezos, etc billionaires. Its hard to answer why they should benefit so hugely when they could have cut into their wealth a little and given their employees a working wage, or slightly better benfits, etc. Instead they have created massive generational wealth gaps where their children/etc will effectively be royalty, and then cynically used propaganda to even neuter the government/financial system from ever re-leveling the playing field.

And what for, so they can have tens of billions instead of tens of millions while something like 50% of the population lacks even basic healthcare, or for that matter food security?

Presumably, a company with Tesla's market cap does not go bankrupt overnight. Even Google, which is no longer the place where the best and brightest want to work, is nowhere near financial decline. Employees, being insiders have plenty of time to prepare for a large company's collapse. (Black Swan events notwithstanding.)

As for investments: I'd much rather trust myself than trust a money manager who's been outperformed by my boss for over a decade.

no that's not always the case - it's up to the individual to think for themselves what they want their investments to be. Tesla shares held by employees may want to keep it for the potential future growth. If they dont, they are allowed to sell.

forcing all employees to choose a "stable" investment option is just patronizing - let them choose for themselves.

because the returns of "investing" in their employee's retirement is not a good ROI for shareholders of tesla. simple as that. There's no humanitarian obligation for tesla to make their employee's retirement great, or any other obligation (other than contractual obligation for payment of wages and benefits already committed).

if employees feel that they are short-changed, they _need_ to leave, and let market forces adjust. if they sacrifice their own wellbeing to the "mission" of tesla, that's on them.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2004/200423/200423p...

http://www.pensionrights.org/issues/legislation/company-stoc...

The problem with GP's scheme isn't that there's a good reason you can't hold whatever security you want in your retirement account: it's that you can't make the contribution in-kind from a taxable brokerage to your tax-advantaged 401(k)/IRA.

It's true that that's rare: but that's because your employer is giving you a shitty 401(k). Ask me about the Latacora 401(k) one day.

Employees are in a position to speculatively contribute to their 401K not knowing if the offered match is going to happen.

---- quote ----

It is the third straight year the automaker has not made any contributions to its 401(k) plan, according to the filing.

The Tesla Inc. 401(k) Plan automatically enrolls participants in the plan with a deferral rate of 5% of employees' salaries with the option to contribute more, according to the plan's most recent Form 5500 filing.

According to the Form 5500, the plan allows for an "employer discretionary matching and/or an employer discretionary non-elective contribution subject to certain eligibility requirements." Those requirements were not met for the 2019 plan year, according to the Form 5500.

The nature of those requirements for Tesla to make contributions to the 401(k) plan was not available. The stock price for the automaker was up 695% for the year ended Dec. 31.

There are tons of added benefits to having your money in a place where you can actually control it (i.e. buy specific stocks with no maintenance fees). I am starting to see the tax deferral status as a sales tactic to lock people into lucratively-managed funds. There are so many ridiculous constraints around how much you can contribute that the tax deferral feels meaningless once you put all of the factors together over a truly meaningful sum of money.

All of that said, I am totally onboard with encouraging healthy savings habits for the masses, but for more advanced users there are definitely better options out there.

To make a point specifically toward Telsa - I feel working for one of Elon's companies is sort of a risk in and of itself. You know you are going to be worked harder and maybe be compensated less. The stock offering is paltry for the average case when considering the volatility of the underlying and lack of diversification. For the advanced user case, TSLA might make perfect sense. More savvy employees may decide to trade their TSLA shares on their brokerage or directly through other platforms in order to build a more diversified portfolio.

There are two main problems with pensions that I see:

1. The longer you work someplace, the more locked in you are. Pensions are structured such that working at the same place for 40 years is better than working at four different places for 10 years each, even if you get paid the exact same salary.

2. When you die, your children get nothing. With the 401k, whatever your balance is goes to your heirs. You can argue that it is better for society for your children to get nothing: that is a valid point of view. But we have a system in place where some people pass on assets to their children and others do not, and the differentiator between the two is the employer. That’s crazy, and the only logical way to play this game is to be on the winning side.

But I would prefer an insured and well-managed pension plan that cannot be touched but the company than a personal 401k.

Not everybody wants to play wall street games to insure a good retirement plan. I would prefer pay someone to do it.

Pensions are basically just 401k's with the risk spread over a larger pool. You know like insurance. A well run pension assumes a conservative rate of return, a conservative inflation and a life expectancy. Then it funds at a level needed to assure a fixed payout to a portion of its workers. No differently than a 401k, except that its a larger pool capable of absorbing market downturns that happen while people are drawing on it just as it absorbs higher returns.

The problem with many of the US pensions were that they were seen as places to raid, or underfunded to gain a slightly better quarterly number, or they were intentionally screwed by wallstreet banks who sold them assets with fixed rates of returns they knew were false. AKA pension plans have been the target of all kinds of fraud, very little of which has been prosecuted.

And then there was the propoganda. Which worked really well. Hey do you want a pension which will pay you 50% of your salary for the rest of your life or this $50 a month which will grow at 8% a year and you will retire with $ million dollars you can do anything with? The business were much happier to cut their pension obligations and match their workers with a far less substantial 401k benefits. Giving your workers $2k a year in 401k matches without any future risk looks a lot better on the balance sheet than putting $5k in a pension for them and assuming the risk that it will be enough to keep them from depending on government handouts.