That's the scam, man. The managed funds are the marks in the room.

When I first heard the scheme as a kid[1] -- that my retirement depended on giving my money back to the owners, all in the hope that it will come back to me in fifty years -- my first thought was, "I'm never seeing that money". I signed for the matching contribution and not a cent more -- getting 2 bucks of Funny Money for each buck seemed like a decent gamble. As I got older I started thinking that the system must work, all the grown ups know what they're doing, "it's the responsible thing to do". Etc etc etc. Now, I'm coming back around to my teenage opinions: they're going to figure out a way to take every single cent of my money.

Shit like this makes people into goldbugs and ammo hoarders. Or worse.

[1] My generation had some of the last pension positions, and 401ks were fairly the new thing.