<prompt> Human: I have never taken a loan out from my retirement benefits, but it was always my understanding that they are designed to be paid back in an amount that prevents you from losing any overall amount from your retirement benefits. IE the amount in your retire account will be about the same after the loan is paid off, or if you never took a loan to begin with.I would rather borrow and payback as much money from myself than a bank. I am assuming I do not understand something about this process.  <response>: Absolutely not. Its a really, really bad idea.IE the amount in your retire account will be about the same after the loan is paid off, or if you never took a loan to begin with.No, because youre not accounting for 1 the risk of job loss and an inability to repay the loaned amount before its considered an early distribution and hit with your tax rate plus a 10 penalty and 2 the fact that you unplugged growth. If you took a loan out 3 years ago and you were just invested in SP 500 index funds, the opportunity cost would have lost 56 of your growth. I am assuming I do not understand something about this process.Opportunity costs and risk. 