Assets held in a 401K, 403B or traditional IRA will eventually be taxed at the investors
full ordinary tax rate while investments held in a taxable account will be taxed at a maximum 20 % tax rate.
This was when stock markets were averaging 15 % annually, 3 % GDP growth was considered a bad year, government bonds yielded between 5 % and 10 %, the highest marginal
tax rate on
ordinary income was ~ 70 %, just about the only way to invest was to pay a
full - service stockbroker over 5 % commission to buy a stock or a mutual fund, and inflation was averaging 4 % to 8 % annually.