Whether it's Bob Clark, my colleague over at ThinkAdvisor who recently opined on what 401(k) plans should cost, or a certain law professional at a deep blue school, who recently threatened to expose plan sponsors who pay "high" fees, the subject of 401(k) fees, strangely dormant since the advent of 408(b)(2) last summer, has erupted with a frenzy this summer. Through all this bickering, though, no one has stood up and identified the real issue with 401(k) fees. 

Until now. 

It's not the high cost of regulation, as one of Clark's readers mentioned, although there certainly is a cost to regulation. It's not service providers who gouge their clients, although, without a strictly enforced fiduciary rule, the possibility certainly exists for this to happen. It's not naïve plan sponsors duped into believing they can get a 401(k) plan "for free," although you definitely don't have to be naïve to be duped.