Hello, Welcome to the fifth edition of Allison’s Ode to the Second Moment, a newsletter that highlights the (mostly manmade) risks we face. He created a monster! Are 401(k)s a monster that destroyed American’s retirement security? Ted Benna, a man who claims he brought 401(k)s into the mainstream, has some regrets. Hmm…I am not sure we can totally blame him. First of all, countries all over the world moved to personal pension accounts around the same time. As special as American tax law is---it did not create the demand for personal pensions. What did? The fact that Defined Benefit (DB) plans are expensive and put so much risk on corporate balance sheets.