Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Why are typical 401(k) plan fund choices so awful?
To piggy back mbhunter's answer, the broker is going to find a way to make the amount of money they want, and either the employee or the company will foot that bill. But additionally, most small businesses want to compete and the market and offer benefits in the US.  So they shop around, and maybe the boss doesn't have the best knowledge about effective investing, so they end up taking the offering from the broker who sells it the best. Give you company credit for offering something, but know they are as affected by a good salesperson as anybody else.  Being a good sales person doesn't mean you are selling a good product.