Industry is resorting to desperation moves to move people's money into the stock markets.

You know that something is very wrong when someone has to force you to accept their products or worse yet, to trick you into accepting them.  A good example of this in the computing world are the so called browser toolbars like the google toolbar, ask.com toolbar, etc.  These are like viruses.  They are heavyweight in impact on your PC performance and you have to wonder what they are doing that makes them thus.  When someone wants me to speed up their PCs, the first thing I ALWAYS do is to remove this crapware and the difference in performance is always noticeable.

 Some of the recent news I have been reading is disconcerting in this regard. For example, here is an article about how companies force or trick their distracted employees into participating in their employee stock ownership programs or in their 401k offerings: "Companies from Apache Corp. to Google Inc. to Credit Suisse Group AG have boosted the percentage of worker paychecks automatically diverted to 401(k) plans well above the long-held standard of 3%. Some are setting aside as much as 10% of their workers’ money or automatically increasing the amounts by 1% a year unless employees opt out. But not all are matching the increased savings with company contributions. Millions of Americans aren’t putting enough money aside for retirement, despite reforms designed to bulk up nest eggs and encourage employees to sock away more.".

Folks, I don't know what else to say except that this cannot end well.  Nobody knows when it will collapse but ALL of these people think they will be getting more out of the markets than they put in and of course a Ponzi scheme doesn't work like that.  Only the first few percent who exit the con get all of their promised benefits.  Everyone else is left holding an empty bag of promises.  I can already see the lawsuits coming when it all collapses one day and employees who didn't pay much attention to the deductions will suddenly realize that they have been quietly swindled like this.  They will be pissed and they will demand that governments "do something" about it.  And so governments will make illegal retroactively what is apparently not illegal today.

And so now I really need to be clear for new readers: 

The stock market is not a savings vehicle.  

If someone were saving their retirement into IBM (far left), they would have just gone backward 5 years.   OK, that's tech.  Everyone knows tech is volatile.  So how about big retail like Wal-Mart?   Sorry folks, no safe haven there!  It's down more from its peak in percentage terms (i.e. the only terms that matter) more than IBM!  OK, what about automobiles, well, volkswagon is next to walmart below.

No sir, stocks are not a savings vehicle, but rather a gambling vehicle.  Some people win and they take out more value than they put in.  But that value had to come from somewhere because the stock market does not itself generate income.  It's only by selling your shares to someone with stars in their eyes about how high the shares might someday go that you actually make money.  Your profits come at the expense of that sorry Mark or Patsy, not from wealth generated by the markets.

So once again, the big boys mix in a little truth such as "people are not saving enough for retirement" along with a lot of bullshit like "the stock market is a great way to save for retirement" in order to create a credible-sounding but false nonetheless pack of lies designed to swindle everyone out of their retirement savings.

If you want to save, buy gold and silver coins and bars.  This might be volatile but it is saving, not gambling.  Your metals will always retain their purchasing power over time.  Stocks and paper money not so much.