Koolau
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
That's silly. All an employee would need to do is to put their 401k in a couple balanced funds and reinvest all dividends and then leave it in the same and set up automatic withdrawals on the way out. Unfortunately, the employer can't give investment advice but it could be done very easily as long as the 401k has one or more good balanced fund choices.
"Silly" to you, perhaps. Puzzling and perplexing and even frightening to a ton of hourly and exempt w*rkers. Funny how "silly" people seem when they don't know what you know. It's easy to call them "silly" because they are not as smart or knowledgeable as you are. "Silly" is an imprecise word with loads of connotation that may not be merited. You've been doing this for what? 30 years? Imagine you're a brick layer who was expecting a pension and suddenly your boss says "you handle it." Now THAT's silly.
Lots of financially ignorant folks get into the "investing" business for the first time and then panic and sell out. That's doubly bad for someone in a 401(k). Call these people "silly" too, I guess. They should be "smart enough" not to do something so "silly." Right?