The ‘ownership society’ outwits even economics Nobelists

Jim Jubak has the lowdown on page 2 of his latest column.

We've gradually discovered, for example, that most people are terrible managers of their own retirement money. Most people, in this case, includes the more than 20 winners of the Nobel Prize in economics that (Peter) Gosselin interviewed.

Jubak has other insights, including that the “ownership society” has produced almost as much income variability among people in the top 10 percent of incomes as the bottom 10 percent.

Now, as he notes, the bottom 10 percent don’t have any buffer or cushion, but it’s interesting the top 10 percent hasn’t opened its eyes yet. After all, in many ways, the “ownership society” has only benefited the top 1 percent of society, not top 10 percent.

Gosselin is the author of the newly- published “High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families,” from which Jubak drew his column.