Why should employees of certain companies receive a more generous tax treatment than the self-employed? It’s all BS and we know it. And if Washington gets its hands on another “reform” they’ll just confiscate more of our money.

If the employer has the best interests of their employees in mind it works. When they hire or have a ‘friend’ doing the consulting is when you have problems. Especially if they collect commissions. There are firms that adminster retirement plans that rebate back 12b1’s and sub-ta’s so they have no incentive to put in expensive funds. They charge a fee not commissions.

This is the right way to do it, but most large brand name mutual fund companies still have an outdated revenue model. They collect these fees and may steer assets to proprietary funds. If you have the right firm consulting the process it works. Having a professional perform due diligence on funds is going to be more successful than an indivisual doing through and IRA generally. Most people have a hard time with asset allocation with 12 asset classes. How can they decide from thousands of mutual funds in an IRA?

I also have issues with laws governing retirement plans, and they could be made easier and more cost effective to manage. Getting these laws changed is like pushing a boulder up a hill though.

It sounds like you need un-biased administration, not blowing up your 401k.

Why not just expand Social Security benefits? This transfers the risk from the individual to the society. As it stands now, some people run out of money, while others oversave. Social security, or some other type of annuity product, would help ensure we save the right amount and use what is rightfully ours.

I agree with this post – it seems that 401k plans are a good idea that in some cases have gone bad.

Rolling them into the IRA plans makes sense – you guys have too many different account types!