<prompt> Human: I recently attended a continuing legal education seminar something I have to do yearly to keep my law license. A financial planner gave one of the lectures, and spoke about several theories that went against the conventional PF advice I had always heard. Im curious what you guys think about this one:She believes that with the exception of matching funds, 401ks and IRA are generally bad investments. She said that when you invest in one of these vehicles, you are essentially betting that the government will not substantially raise taxes. But given the substantial deficit and current state of entitlements in this country, she believes its a near certainty that tax rates will go up in the coming decades. She also said that when your money sits in one of these vehicles, it has a low velocity of money since it can only serve one purpose as opposed to many other investments where you can leverage each dollar into several investments. She says this, coupled with illiquidity, high management fees and inflation generally make these vehicles bad investments.This actually sounds reasonable to me, but Im not well-versed in PF, so please let me know what you think! EDIT: Thanks everyone. I now have a better grip on why she wrong. And dont worry, I never planned on hiring her. Assistant: The answer to this question will be the most telling: what did this financial advisor suggest people do instead of contribute to an IRA or 401k?Human: I asked her that. She said her firm has a holistic approach that differs for each person depending on their goals and circumstances.  <response>: Translation: I dont explain to my clients what I do in the hopes that I can extract more money from them.While everyones situation is unique, theres very few cases where ones specific situation warrants a completely different strategy than the next person. For normal, healthy people in their accumulation phase, a simple portfolio adjusted for risk tolerance works fine.I hope I dont have to tell you that you should stay as far away from her business as possible. 