I am ripping off my question and details, vague and poorly remembered, from PBS's Frontline series. They aired a program on retirement some time ago. (Hope I haven't turned anybody away by mentioning Frontline. Opinions on the show are polarized. I'd like to hear from both sides on this.)
I wish I could give you all the details I found startling the night I watched the program. It's been a while; if you want more, you might want to visit:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/...
You can view the program in it's entirety.
Here's the deal:
Corporations are ridding themselves of costly pensions at the expense of the workers who must ';manage'; their 401ks. This can be disadvantageous; we formerly had the clout of large pools of money when employers furnished funds to investors to sustain pensions-no more, you've only the few thousand dollars you've saved. Further, we lost experienced finance mangers that were investing our money. I'm not a planner=my money makes less.