Jason Zweig

So a tontine is an informal kind of insurance in which a group of people get together and they pool their money.

And as each member of the tontine dies off, the money is then redistributed among the survivors.

Members of some Tantines developed an unfortunate habit of murdering some of the other members to get the money early.

if you think about it, is in principle not that different from a lot of forms of insuring for retirement.

And it's an interesting metaphor for the risk that's inherent in every retirement system.

We're all making a gamble that the money set aside for retirement, either by us, by our company, or by the government, will be there

when we need it, when we retire.

And it doesn't always feel like a gamble, but there's always some risk inherent in it.

People like to call this the three-legged stool, but the stool is a little shaky.

I think all the legs of that stool are a little shaky.

I think it's crazy to put those assets there.

And I think it's crazy from their point of view.

They have nice lives.

They make a fortune.

The companies are huge.

They already own their yachts and whatever it is they want.

Why are you going into this dangerous territory just to make your business a little bit bigger?

And that represents such a big potential problem in the future.

I think there's a tendency among a lot of people today who comment on retirement plans to glamorize defined benefit pension plans and to say, oh, back in the 1950s, you know, oh, leave it to Beaver.

It was a great time to retire.