The TSP seems to provide a no-loseinvestment strategy for retirement saving, with its conservative selections such as government bonds with guaranteed principal protection and seemingly low-cost expense ratios. [...] what are your thoughts in this regard, and how would you handle such matters? - M.M., Newark, N.J. Recent stories about financial salespeople taking government employee retirees out of the TSP are a clear example of how commission-driven (and borderline criminal) the financial services industry can be. There is no way that you can replace either the safety of the government bonds fund or the low cost of the low-cost index funds with a product available in the private market. To make matters worse, government employees have less need for commercially supplied sources of income security than most private-sector workers.