I like that I don’t have to actively deal with receiving the money as cash, pay the highest marginal taxes on it in my highest earning years, every other week having to transfer the cash to an investment account, managing investments, and every time I consider a trade dealing with tax planning on unrealized gains. Maybe I’d end up with a few more shekels if I took this approach, but I’d rather not have it all in the orbit of my mind for multiple decades of my life.

Much like the pilots who retired with a full pension. I bet they never once worried about the ESG exposure of the pension fund. However, unlike the pension, an aggressive management team cannot steal this money.

After we raised the bar to 18% DC, SWA knocked it out of the park and raised it further to 20%. It’s a foregone conclusion we get 20% in the next contract. At that level of contribution, any pilot should be able to set their 401k allocations into a few solid index funds as a new hire, and let the MBCBP churn on autopilot and end up with a very comfortable retirement 30 years later with zero effort. Remember, the investment allocation of the MBCBP is negotiable as well, and I fully expect it will improve in the next round of negotiations.

This should be the goal of a collectively bargained retirement benefit. Set and forget, and spend your time off enriching your life in other ways.

Just my opinion only.


As the late great philosopher said- breathe in, breathe out, move on.

Everyone had their choice and they made it.