The American Dream is dead, and Wall Street has killed it. From the dream of home ownership, the dream of a good education to the dream of a good paying job, the root of the collapse of the American Dream can be laid at the feet of greedy Wall Street execs. Wall Street has pushed for laws and policies allowing them to legally rob from the middle class while stagnant wages have pushed millions into poverty. But as the Baby Boomers reach retirement, a new problem rears its ugly head as it turns out that the same Wall Street bankers which engineered the death of the other aspects of the American Dream have also taken hundreds of thousands out of their retirement accounts, eliminating the dream of a comfortable retirement for millions of Americans.





PBS’s Frontline looked into this, after studies found that the compound fees within mutual funds were causing hundreds of thousands of dollars to be taken out of people’s retirement accounts, put straight into Wall Street bankers pockets. What they found was that not only was the study accurate, but that it has been only getting worse.

For a simple recap, Wall Street applies compound interest on any mutual funds it manages. This in turn adds up over time. Using the compound interest calculator from Money Chimp we can find that, using the maximum donation of 15% on someone making $44k a year using an average 6% return, but switching from a 3% annual fee to a 1%, it can bring a 40 year savings for retirement from $1,199,777.42 to $700,413.56. That is almost $500,000 of your money which went into wall street banker pockets, money intended for your retirement. Add in the “revenue sharing” fees handed over to the middlemen, ones retirement can be turned from your golden years, to a life or death struggle, even dumping retirees into prison when their retirement funds run dry prematurely. Combine this with the effort to privatize Social Security, allowing Wall Street to pocket even more of your retirement money, an ugly truth emerges.

This is a five-part video everyone needs to watch, and then to look at their own retirement accounts. The money you save can be yours.

Part 1:

Watch The Retirement Gamble on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Part 2:

Watch The Retirement Gamble on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Part 3:

Watch The Retirement Gamble on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Part 4:

Watch The Retirement Gamble on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Part 5:

Watch The Retirement Gamble on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Nathaniel Downes is the son of a former state representative of New Hampshire, now living in Seattle Washington.

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