For those that hate searching for articles, highlights below. Actually some interesting information.

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Eighteen percent of workers had loans outstanding from their retirement plans in 2007, up from 11% in 2006, according to a survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, a nonprofit corporation funded by Transamerica Life Insurance.

Major retirement plan providers are reporting a similar trend. The number of participants taking loans from their 401(k) plans rose by 7% at the end of last year from six months earlier, according to a JPMorgan Chase analysis of 350 plans nationwide that cover 1.3 million people. Those results followed a period from January 2005 through June 2007 when loans from these 401(k) plans fell by 15%.
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In the Transamerica study, which surveyed more than 2,000 full-time employees at for-profit companies, 49% of those who borrowed from their retirement savings said they had taken the loans to pay off debts, up from 27% in 2006.

In some instances, workers in fear of home foreclosure may be tapping retirement funds as a last-ditch measure, says Anne Lester, a senior portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management.
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