[bassman9000]

* like controlling your own retirement assets is a good system to transfer money from regular people to the market makers/full time stock investors.*

Who said you have to? Fidelity, Securian, and the likes all offer balanced, automated, diversified 401ks and IRAs. Check the plans, and tell me if there's any concentrating on a given sector.

[njarboe]

Maybe I was a bit obtuse but the transfer comes not from poor diversification (although that can be a problem) but market timing. When a person in control of their retirement fund and has a diversified retirement account, just like the experts say, they eventually build it up to a decent amount. Now they start to pay attention to the losses and gains. If stocks now go crazy for a few years, all the hype and past missed gains are so great they sell their bonds and buy stocks near the peak. Then the market crashes and they sell near the bottom for a 50% loss. Then they have been so burned they just keep it in cash and miss out on making it all back and then some in the next bull market. The really unfortunate (stupid?, greedy?, gullible?) people cycle through this more than once. I know I'm not immune.

Not sure how one would set up a system where people can control their own retirement funds and yet not control them. Some system where you can only trade with a one month lead time? Or only allow people to buy those timed funds that mix and match highly diversified stock and bond funds depending on your age. Seems like a hard problem.