Well pedantically that's not far from historical performance of equity markets if NOT adjusted for inflation, which these numbers wouldn't be. But he point stands that (1) pension funds won't be 100% equity, and (2) a pension fund should be assuming more conservative growth figures.

A stupid, but widely believed projection. In the years before the .com crash many people really believed that "This time is different."

Many people believed the housing crash wouldn't happen, many people often believe incredibly naive things. This should not excuse them. There were people among them trying to be voices of reason, they ignored them -- as they always do.

It doesn't matter that it was a terrible idea. The people who voted in favor got the poll bump they wanted and everyone is gone by the time the bill comes due.

Burn this pattern into your brain, it has happened hundreds of times and will happen hundreds more. Every single time people will exclaim "We couldn't have known!" That is simply misdirection, they didn't even TRY to know.

Yes, there are many stupid but widely believed projections.

.com boom is not a regular boom. It will rise forever!

Housing prices will always rise!

Ad-tech will grow boundlessly!

In my opinion one of the greatest tragedies of these cycles is that many people desperately want to believe they hype about "This time it's different", and they can find plenty of "experts" to tell them what they want to hear. Regular people who could have had a solid place in the middle class are thrown into chaos because they lack financial savvy.

Is it stupid to expose yourself to a level of risk that can cause this? I think so. However, it seems like we provide more and more opportunities for unsavvy people to do severe and long-term damage to themselves and their families.