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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

What you don't know about your 401K

Steve Kroft of 60 Mintues on CBS had a great story on 401Ks. Sure we know lots of folks are losing money in these supposed retirment vehilces, but there could be some other stuff you don't know:

"There clearly has been a raid on these funds by the people of Wall Street. And it's cost the savers and the future retirees a lot of money that would otherwise be in their account, independent of the financial collapse," Rep. George Miller [D-CA] said.

Congressman Miller is chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and a staunch critic of the 401(k) industry, especially its practice of deducting more than a dozen undisclosed fees from its clients' 401(k) accounts.

"Now you got a bunch of economic wizards jumping in and taking money out of your retirement plan, and they don't wanna tell you how much, you can't decipher it in simple English, and they're not interested in disclosing it, or having any transparency about it," Miller told Kroft.

"And most of the people that look at their 401(k)s have no idea that these fees are being taken out?" Kroft asked.

"No. Where would you find it? Where would you find these fees in this prospectus? You can look on any page you want, and when you're all done reading it, and you will find some of the fees and the commissions here, but you won't find them all, and I'll bet you won't find half of 'em," Miller said. READ THE REST

Also interesting is how the 401K got its start and how it was not intended to be your full nest egg. CONTACT: Leave me a Houston or Texas media news tip | COMMENT: Click to leave your thoughts on this post here