‘Might’ Makes… Wrong?
Sometimes the motivations of those attacking the 401(k) are pretty obvious. The most recent was an article by a Maurie Backman at the Motley Fool titled, “ Why a 401(k) isn’t the wonderful savings tool you think it is. ” I tried to ignore it when it first (to my eyes) appeared on Forbes (which seems to have a pretty low threshold for contributions these days), and I was no more inclined to read it when it showed up a couple of days later on Fox News. But then folks started sharing it on both LinkedIn and Twitter—some ostensibly to hold it up for ridicule, [i] others as an affirmation—and, with some reluctance, I finally clicked on the article. Oddly, considering the title (and, in fairness, editors have been known to tweak headlines such that they bear little resemblance to the article they are attached to), the article spent almost as much space outlining the virtues of the 401(k)—specifically that they are “easier to sign up for” than an IRA, ...