Early Access To Retirement Funds - An (American) Horror Story

Late to the party, I just got to American Horror Stories (with a plural "s" at the end). I like the Twilight 7one / Black Mirror separate stories.  The first episode - well, the second part of the first episode - gets to a pet peeve of mine about which I've previously posted, to wit: the cashing out of a retirement money to get past a transient problem in middle (or earlier) age.

It's SUCH a bad idea. Look, I know money can be short, but the committing oneself to a life of potential poverty in later years is just so awful. As noted in the above-referenced prior post, back in the day, both McCain and Obama as candidates AGREED that people should more easily be able to get at 401(k) money. And yet, even with bipartisan agreement, it, for (very) good reasons, never happened. Under pressure (as the song goes), they loosened up access for COVID, although, if you really look at it, it's a verrrrry narrow loosening.

So why should we be surprised that bad things may happen in a horror show when one of the guys (here, Matt Bomer's Michael Winslow) bemoans about his house-related money problems that "I'm going to have to cash in my 401(k)." Yeeeeaaargh, . . . don't do it!!!!!*

[SPOILER ALERT - read no farther if you haven't watched the episode and my want to in the future]

Indeed, in some ways, the episode is structured around this principle. Near the end of the episode [AGAIN - SPOILER ALERT], after Matt's been killed, he asks his daughter, Sierra McCormick's Scarlett Winslow, about her plans to travel: "Where will you go?" She responds, "I'm not sure yet. Maybe abroad. You guys [referring both to Matt, and her other dad, Gavin Creel's Troy Winslow] won't need your retirement or 401(k) funds, so I should have enough cash to take my time figuring it out."** Wow. They actually planted as a Chekhov's Gun*** a 401(k) reference early in the episode and then called back to it as the episode came to a close. After that, who dares to think that ERISAns have not arrived?!?

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* See, I take these things quite to heart. Which I guess is a segue that will allow me to wish you all an early Happy Valentine's Day! So: Happy Valentine's Day (early)!!

** Troy (again, Scarlett's other dad) later tells Scarlett she has to go to school. Scarlett answered with, among other retorts, "School sucks." Sorta brought me back to the time I first heard Mike Judge's Butt-Head utter those immortal words, "If I wanted to read I'd go to school." 

*** I must credit my son for regaling me with the Chekhov's Gun thing several years ago. (For a fun anecdote along these lines, check out the interview with Vince Gilligan regarding the gun in the trunk in the final season of Breaking Bad.) He's also brought to my attention such wonders as Infinite Monkeys and Schrödinger's Cat. He's a good boy.