Anyway, there is nothing better than stock market. I don't want to tell obvious things, but buying stocks are buying what the economy is made of. Everything else, like real estate for example, is just a direct or indirect derivative of stock. Investing in anything else (of course as long as we stay in a legal field, and mean only passive investment) just trades profits for risks. Best way of doing so is a balanced portfolio of stocks, bonds and cash, due to inverse correlation between stocks and bonds most of the time, but anyway, this isn't required on a 70-year timeline. If stock market won't give you the return, nothing else will - even bank deposit can be 'diluted' with inflation.
Social security, pensions etc. - agree, these are on the way out due to demographic changes. But that's a point for individual retirement savings, not against them.
And yes, there is no such thing as stock performance prediction, this has been proven many times since the 1930s. So funds are useless in the long run - just a way to trade performance for risks, and pay a fee (while i agree that in the case of Vanguard, you lose almost nothing because the fund is really cheap).
You have to be pretty good to pick individual stocks which will perform well on a 70 year timeline. Are there even more then 20 companies that have been publicly traded in the US for that long?
okay, okay, i got your point. Yes as long as the fund is a really low fee one, like Vanguard's ones with around $10 per $10000 a year invested, that's nearly an equivalent to a stock market minus the pain of balancing the portfolio yourself.
But again, that really means nothing compared to the fact that people don't really save at all. I know a lot of people of my age (early 30s) for who the phrase 'got no money' means 'maxed out all of my credit cards and can't get a new one'. Some of them are MBAs so it's not about financial literacy.
Social security, pensions etc. - agree, these are on the way out due to demographic changes. But that's a point for individual retirement savings, not against them.
And yes, there is no such thing as stock performance prediction, this has been proven many times since the 1930s. So funds are useless in the long run - just a way to trade performance for risks, and pay a fee (while i agree that in the case of Vanguard, you lose almost nothing because the fund is really cheap).