A good friend of mine was the Benefits manager at the company where I worked. When you retired, you could choose to take your pension benefit as a lump sum, OR as lifetime payments, where you bet your lifespan against your payout. You live 40 more years, you take out way more than you put in; you die the next week, the company keeps the money. Just like insurance.

At any rate, very many people opted to take the cash payout. That would be all very well if you invested it in some fund that would pay you at a rate that would not eat up your investment, and you would have a long-term income, as was intended. That's what its for.

But many people would take their $600,000 or whatever it was, and buy a motorhome, and a boat, and a new Range Rover, and live the high life for a while; then the stuff rusts away and it's gone, and they moan the rest of their life about having to live on their Social Security check, and how badly they were done by, etc etc .....

Some people, you just can't help.

Lannis