I am glad I have never had to do that, but it seems 50 percent of the people I know have. What do you guys see?

I've never had to do that either. I'm not sure what others are doing with their savings, but to me a 401k is for old age security during retirement years, and shouldn't be drained.

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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~Immanual Kant~

I had a manager years ago who always got advances on her 401K that she would pay back slowly over several months. This girl was a consumer-driven person, in a heap of dept., declared bankruptcy years ago and was always wasting money. Certain people have the temperament that can't save a dime for more than 1 month.

That describes it pretty much. The people I know raided it to support a lifestyle they should not have had, but many people see $$$ anywhere, even 401k's and they have to grab it NOW! I worked with someone in florida who dumped her 401k from a previous job for a down payment on a condo in which she foreclosed on 3 yrs after she bought it. Knew another person (in her mid 50s) who dumped one to party hardy in sarasota fl and lost it all in 2 yrs. have a friend who is dumping one due to bad decisions. I have learned to just shut up because you cannot talk logic when people decide to do it. But the data holds: The person in FL who dumped her entire 401k for a condo now has neither.

I'll bet the people at Enron wish they could have done that. Heck, they could not even sell their company stock within the 401K to instead purchase mutual funds.

I know people who have raided theirs due to health problems. There are some times when life obstacles require such raiding. But greed is a disease that attacks at the worse time in one's life. Those are the times when a financial adviser is well worth the expense.

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- Jim

�Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.� Sir Winston Churchill

My 401k contributions completely came out of my paycheck, the amount was not matched in any way by the employer. Not about to throw it away on a pricey condo or fancy car. If you can't afford it without raping your 401k, then you can't afford it, IMO.

I know people in their 50s who; if you said a 10,000$ check right now or 200,000 at age 62, would take the 10k right now

Then they get what they deserve.

It occasionally surfaces that the gov considers letting people manage their own social security. An idea presented by Pres Bush jr. for people to put that in the stock market. That was during the dot com bubble. Shortly after that, the gov considered letting the people manage half of their social security. I think the idea is that social security is too big for any government office to manage it.

What worries me about this, is the truths within the previous posts. The young people would not manage it right, then expect the gov, meaning the rest of us, to bail them out after having mismanaged their own retirement.

These entitlement programs cost us a lot of money and person power, but it would cost far more in the end. This is the basic difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. The repubs want to ensure the health and longevity of the corporations and wealthy, believing that such wealth will trickle down through the economy (Reaganomics). It hardly ever trickles down below the CEOs. The dems want to ensure the health and wealth of the individuals. That is very expensive and society does not want to redistribute its wealth to those they feel do not deserve it, those that do not seem to put effort into their own well being. Yet, this is predominantly a Christian nation. The religious right (conservatives) does not seem to recall the parables of their savior who taught them to help the poor and the sick, and who taught them the strength of the community as well as secularism. Quite socialistic actually. We will continue to have problems as we continue to mature and evolve.

Trickle down would work if they would actually do it. I was in Bermuda 3 weeks a go and they had major trickle down with a very polite society because of it. I believe in a partial health care system where you pay based on your worth/pay, but everyone should pay something. I also believe that all 18 yr olds should do a yr of military service.

According to the constitution, yes I know that�s is the document that no one pays much attention to anymore but still, but it starts out saying the one of the purposes of government is to �promote the general welfare�. Note the wording is says promote not provide. In other words government is allowed to do things that would help you to provide for your own welfare.

Of course along the way we have lost track of that concept. So what do we do with people who are unable or unwilling to plan for their future? When their future arrives are we willing to say OK you made your bed now you have to sleep in it? On some level that would be a satisfying response but eventually most people would be willing to do something for them. But what and how much?

Our current social security program has involved into a retirement program for everyone, unless of course you work for the government and then you�re eligible for a special deluxe retirement program. However SS wouldn�t be all that bad if it wasn�t broke because our trusted representatives have stolen all its money for other uses.

This money problem obviously needs fixing. One good start to that end would be to acquaint the appropriate representatives with just exactly what the 2nd amendment is all about.

Assuming that helps speed along the fixing of our money problem I would still feel that we need a two stage system. SS would remain pretty much the way it is, you would still be required to pay into it, and I would have no problem if a small portion of this money was safely invested to provide additional income for the system. This then would take care of all the brain dead individuals who do not or will not plan for their own future.

Then for those that are will to do their own planning they could invest a portion of their SS deductions, as they chose, into their own personal retirement accounts. If they do well then at some point they would be allowed to invest their entire SS deductions.

Maybe these people raiding their 401K have read this article and are getting at their money before the government does.

https://tycoonreport.tycoonresearch.c...o-steal-your-k

Looks like they are getting ready to tax contributions which are tax free at the moment.

https://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...lVsEIJj2IVgHuK

there is a difference betyween taxing cointributions and outright taking your 401k