3 out of 5 of us will go broke in retirement

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/07/14/daily6.html

Just to cheer everybody up!

Seriously... I've always thought the whole "just max out on your 401K and you're doing well" thing was suspect. Relying that much on the stock market doesn't seem to make sense... and yet the financial gurus told us it did.

 

I'll be shocked if I don't work until the day I die. That is, of course, if I ever get a job.

 

So why the hell is health care an issue? We don't need it except to keep us healthy for our "economic purposes" as pawns for the chess-playing ruling class. When we retire, just let us rot away in sickness.

 

I can understand the other places, but Utah?

 

Some of us don't have to wait for retirement...

 

There is nothing to do there so nobody spends any money.

 

Right. I forgot LaVell Edwards' old line about the Holiday Bowl: "The San Diego people got mad at us because our fans would bring a copy of the Ten Commandments and a $100 bill and break neither."

 

Actually, it's 5 of 5 if you stay in journalism...

 

Honest to god, that was going to be my post.

I'm making money that's good enough to live on, but I just looked and I've overdrawn my checking account. My savings account is nonexistent. I live a sad, sad life.

 

Actually surprised it's not higher. The level of retirement savings in this country is appalling--I recall reading a while back that more than half the folks 35 and over had less than $25K in personal savings. Scary to think how many of those are 45 or older in that situation.

And health care is a big deal in all this. Could come to the day where people are using most of their social security funds to pay their Medicare premiums, leaving relatively little left over for luxuries like utilities and food.

 

Umm, yeah.

Retirement is getting to be a pipe dream for many, but I'd depend on a more impartial source than a company like Americans for a Secure Retirement, which is funded by insurance companies with a vested interest in getting people to buy annuities.

Annuities are debatable tools for retirement because of their ridiculously high fees. Naturally, that explains why insurance companies are hawking them.

Looks like ol' Tierney swallowed the bait here.

 

Save smarter, not harder, for retirement.