you cannot encourage, ne brainwash, your populace from the day they are born with images and messages of how to be a good consuming citizen for the benefit of the economy, and then tell them, but wait, save enough so when you're old and decrepit you don't end up on the street.

For instance, the speech acknowledges severe 401(k) damages in the third paragraph:

And the decline in the financial markets has led to a decline in the value of 401(k)s and other sources of savings and retirement security. As a result, over the past two years, the American people have lost about $2 trillion in retirement savings.

But the still-recent instability of the stock market and 401(k)s are forgotten by the time the speech hits the seventh paragraph:

First, we're going to make it easier for small businesses to do what large businesses do: allow workers to automatically enroll in a 401(k) or an individual retirement account.

Tax returns in the form of savings bonds?  Double no thanks. For working stiffs a vig return is counted on as part of your yearly income, there is no doing without it...the utility co. ain't gonna wait for your bonds to mature.

Unused vacation/sick time?  My outfit, like many others, has a use it or lose it policy...not applicable.  

I know he is examining and agrees that poverty level and how it is configured is not accurate(and I give him points for actually putting policy first in this instance) but I have to wonder if he has ever tried to find the ability to save when you fall in the lower levels of income. It would be a great exercise for him to examine the concept(heck why not make it a group activity and let Summers and Geitner , oh and I don't think we should forget folks like Sebelius join in). If I make x amount of dollars how much do I need or can I afford to allot for housing(30% or lower seems to be the standard although I think I'd be hard pressed to find $348 housing on that $7.25 an hour job), electricity(it went up 17% where I am this year, yikes it still only comprises less than 10% of MY budget though and would probably comprise a small fraction more for someone who makes minimum wage even with being thrifty< I'll even be generous and assume water/gas included as well as phone), food((about 10% if using the thrifty plan at USDA, health care(they are suggesting 16% just for premiums for an individual I believe)not including a co pay or a shared cost for medicine or a dental plan. Transportation(I'll pretend that they forwent saving and bought the car outright and are just paying liability or have a bus pass put in 6% or a mere 70 bucks) Oh let's not forget a 2% state tax or "fee" since that is all the rage right outright either to pay for my kids schooling, police, fire,etc etc, yes I'll get it back but not THIS year). By my count we're at 74% of the budget gone and we haven't even started including clothing or co pays or the random I need to replace a tire or buy a coat and boots. I didn't even consider purchasing something like cable or including life insurance, let alone the stupidity of being stuck paying a credit card that was offered off. Is it any wonder some people aren't saving? It isn't they don't want to it's that they CAN'T because there just isn't enough money left at the end of the month.

It's going to get worse too since stuff like health care seems stuck at status quo.

I can save and economize with the best of them, and frankly I see no reason to put money into the hands of a 401k or any other Wall Street program.

The long version:  Key phrases here are things we heard during the primary and general election campaigns, if we had our ears to the ground, such as "nudge," libertarian paternalism," and "what the hell are you thinking?"  

These are ideas beloved of liberal technocrats, people like, say, Austan Goolsbee, or Brad DeLong, the latter of whom you might otherwise think is pretty sharp (I do, for the record).  They argue that non-participation in 401(k)s, etc., leaves retirement money on the table, especially on the part of those who can least afford to leave it, and that if we just make even a small amount of investment and savings the default option rather than an active choice, we can clear that money off the table to the benefit of all. Dirt cheap, falling-off-a-log easy, zero conflict, and everybody wins!  Yay for good government!

This is OK as far as it goes, but it has two major flaws: first of all, people decline to sign up for 401ks and the like largely because they can't afford to, not because they just don't get it; secondly, its very pre-2008 to assume asset prices are going to appreciate just because, well, they always have if you average it out over a long enough period of time.  Past performance is no guarantee of future results, as they say in the fine print, and if you just happen to have to retire in a down period you will find out the hidden meaning of the word "average" (i.e., "cover for a multitude of inconvenient data points.")

and that no matter how you dress it up, $ in a 401k is invested, not saved, and that these things are not the same.

• Take 401K away from employers.  let any individual open a tax free account with a company like fidelity, and allow them to contribute directly or provide a simple process for employers.  Fidelity is perfectly capable of cutting you off at the maximum, or splitting the amounts into taxable and nontax.
  
• Let anyone open a tax-deferred health savings account and contribute an amount equal to or x% larger than their family deductible total.
  
• Make a savings plan that non-wealthy people can afford.  Small contributions, no fees, easy access to the money.

• Eliminate federal restrictions on states enforcing usury laws.  If we can legislate recognition of marriage and access to abortion across state lines, surely we can allow the other 48 states to set interest rate caps lower than South Dakota and Delaware.
  
• Bring payday loans under control of usury laws
  
• Provide universal catastrophic care insurance.  Don't let anyone go bankrupt for medical reasons.  If this is part of universal health care, even better.

Americans don't have money for these kinds of wild luxuries. Maybe you people in the top 20% have that kind of disposable income, but no one else does.

This temporary "slowdown" in the rate of our freefall into the abyss is just that, temporary. The residential real estate implosion was simply the first leg, the cap igniting the dynamite, if you will. The commercial real estate debacle ahead is being handed the baton. Mortgage payments can't be met, vacancies are through the roof. With the wild over-building of the past few decades, and consumers' incomes declining, it will be generations, if ever, for that market to return.

At the same time our Government has set into motion National debt with numbers so large, it's almost incomprehensible to us mere mortals. The Con-Man in the White House is trying to sell the snake oil that his "green shoots" will blossom into millions and millions of new, high paying jobs, and before you know it, we'll have a balanced budget and a zero debt.

I challenge anyone here to tell us, "Where will the jobs come from?"

What do we have that's better than the rest of the world? Natural resources? No. Manufacturing? No. Better students? No. An enlightened government? Please.

There will be no recovery. When the crash finally comes to an end sometime in the future, we'll just stay there, flat lined.