Stop me before I spend again

Back in December, I excoriated Sebastian Mallaby of the WashPost for a condescending article he wrote suggesting that Americans with personal Social Security accounts would be discombobulated by an abundance of choices (that is, freedom). But in the latest edition of Fortune magazine, there’s a story called “Why Johnny Can’t Save for Retirement” suggesting that human brains aren’t wired for the kind of risk/reward planning required for long-term investing. That is, although most Americans know that Social Security is in trouble and know they should be saving more in their 401(k) plans, they can’t make the logical leap and take steps that would alleviate those problems today.