Back then peoples pensions were increasingly being run by private investment firms. When that bubble burst many people who may have had normal pensions say through unions had been moved into the IRA/401k world, or should I say forced to. Yes many peoples "pensions" were so heavily weighted in sketchy tech stocks they got wiped out. You assume that every one has complete control over their retirement IRA's/401k's. Most people who are lucky enough to have a job that provides them with one must "conform" to the managing companies investment practices in order to get the matching investment their company may offer. If one chooses not to tow the line or live in one of the boxes the management company offers they loose the matching funds, which is a big deal in most cases. I went through that several times. In the late 90's people were not really educated (the number of IRA/401k seminars in the 90's was insane) and the laws were extremely loose on how these new "pension" systems operated and very little was regulated on how they invested that money. If you were 45 or 50 years old when the tech bubble burst and the company managing your pension was weighted heavy into the tech sector, yeah, you could lose your entire retirement. That wasn't even close to being able to retire back then. I know people who worked for a large unionized company whose pensions were moved into 401ks in such a situation and yes, they lost everything to the point their accounts were closed or hammered hard enough it took 10 or 15 years to scrape what they had worked so for back. Many lost over 100k dollars and never got it back, 25 years worth of retirement savings. It did happen. '07/08 was different.
Just my opinion but I still say this economy isnt right, at least in the economic basics I was taught in school. I'm no economist, respectfully 
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