Richard Thaler

We're just reducing the gain.

We tripled saving rates in that company.

I recently looked this up.

There's something like $9 trillion in 401k plans.

Those two ingredients are part of how we got there.

The third was creating a sensible default investment.

In the early 2000s, the Labor Department had said the only thing you can put people in without them choosing is like a savings account or a money market account.

And a bunch of us lobbied to get what are now called target date funds, but a more diversified investment, which starts out young people mostly in stocks and then ramps it down as they reach retirement.

So those three ingredients, automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, and good default investments.

are now part of most plans.

And we wouldn't have $9 trillion in 401ks without those.

Yes.

One is people aren't dumb.

The world is hard.

Number two, to improve life and people's lives, I have a three-word answer to how to do that.

Make it easy.

That's all you have to do.

Make the good choice easy to do.

The last I would say is anytime you ask somebody, why do we do that that way?

And they say, well, that's because we've always done it that way.