1) He said it was a failure. It being the 402k system
2) if you are at or very near retirement, you shouldn’t have all/most/or half of your investments in equities. Bonds and money markets should be a major factor in your portfolio. This is simple early grade investment knowledge.
Here is a fun math exercise for you. How much money for retirement would you have if you made $36,000 a year every single year (literally never get a raise) from age 25-65 and instead of 6.2% ($2,232 yearly) going into SS it went into an investment account at the historical average inflation adjusted 7% annual growth?