In my opinion the days of the 401k and tax deferred investing are in the tank. The run away spending in Washington will just create greater tax burden on income earners in the future and the tax rates at retirement will be greater then what they are at least for now. There are too many doom sayers out there predicting the DOW dropping to 3K or less. In this type of environment what are the best investments outside of the Stock Market for an individual investor that will get a better return then 0.001% like the money market accounts.