Reply #39: It all boils down to how the economy is doing when YOU need to "cash out"

[SoCalDem]

"Over the long term" is great, as long as your statements show you are doing fine, BUT if the whole thing collapses 3 years before YOU need to retire, you are screwed with no time to recoup..

It's gambling

I see the whole 401-k thing as a clever plan to 86 pensions, in favor of a long term slush fund of money put in weekly..for the wunderkinds to play around with.. They took their commissions & bonuses all along the way.... for gambling with money that could not be touched for decades..and since the boomer generation was so huge, they all knew there would be a day of reckoning, when that "statement" money would have to be made "real".. they got all they could before that happened, and then crashed the whole thing into the ditch just as they were to start paying it out..

You could be playing a slot machine and have it run up to $1k, but if you keep playing it until the money is all played out, you still lose..,