My guest essay for Times Opinion began with a mystery in my retirement account. Like most people, once I set that account up on my first day of work, I didn’t give it much thought. My nest egg was on autopilot. But, as I would discover, it was also flying to some exotic destinations. Money became more important after our second daughter was born. The future no longer seemed so far away. Here it was at nine pounds and six ounces, while our first baby was no longer a baby. Could we afford a bigger house? When my daughters got to college, would tuition cost as much as a house? Leaving my job with the U.S. government provided the final push to dust off my account statements and really take stock of my savings. I’m one of over seven million Americans with a Thrift Savings Plan account, the federal government’s version of a 401(k) and the largest defined-contribution plan in the world. But the plan’s international index fund is a black box: It lists the top 10 holdings, while more than 5,000 others remain hidden. So hidden that I had to file a Freedom of Information Act request — yes, the same tool that journalists used to reveal the C.I.A.’s mind control experiments — just to see where my investments were going. The answer to that request was eye-opening and unsettling. I wrote my essay to share some of the problematic investments I uncovered, and to call for greater transparency and better choices. Above all, I hope it encourages readers to simply take a closer look at where their own savings are being sent — you might be surprised.
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