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Retirement Article

Your Money

America's Bestselling Retirement "Plan" Is Jeopardizing - of All Things - Your Retirement

By , Editor, Permanent Wealth Investor - • Print | Email

I recently received a call from "Russ," a client of mine. He was wondering why the investments he holds at my money management firm have gone up so much more than the money he's entrusted to a major fund broker.

I'd be wondering, too.

That's because, in a year filled with hundreds of 52-week highs and a broad market that climbed roughly 25%, they've managed to "grow" Russ' money all of… 2%?

It didn't take long to find out why.

It's estimated that by 2020, nearly $3.85 trillion will be invested in the same "one-click" mutual fund industry's bestsellers that Russ did: "Target Retirement Funds."

In fact, these "solutions" are more dangerous than they've ever been...

Investing Tips

The (Simple) Secret to an Early Retirement

By , Editor, Permanent Wealth Investor - • Print | Email

In my early career, I was fortunate to do well financially while working at Goldman Sachs. I also made the decision to live below my means, and to invest intelligently. By my late twenties, I had amassed a seven-figure nest egg, and in my early thirties, I actually took an extended vacation for about five years.

What I came to learn, however, is that you don't have to work for Goldman Sachs – or be a multi-millionaire – to be able to retire comfortably or early.

You don't even have to figure out your "number"...

Income Plays

WARNING: These Stocks Will Crush You (Strong Sell)

By , Editor, Permanent Wealth Investor - • Print | Email

Log in to your brokerage account… Call your broker… Request a plan prospectus from your pension administrator… Jump online and review the holdings in your "target retirement" funds, ETFs, variable annuities…

Do whatever it takes to find out – today – how much exposure you have to real estate investment trusts (REITs), and mortgage REITs in particular.

Income Plays

The Most Dangerous Myth About Retirement Investing

By , Editor, Permanent Wealth Investor - • Print | Email

The most dangerous myth out there right now is that Treasuries are the key to safe wealth building.

Forget about Fed Chairman Ben Benanke's latest palliative.

This misconception will turn your nest egg into a pile of sticks faster than you can say quantitative easing.

And this is a huge problem because the baby boomers are starting to retire in droves.

I call this the Great Retirement Funding Crisis. And I am determined not to be a part of it. And I have a plan.

Retirement

How Congress and Obama Robbed U.S. Pension Plans with Map-21

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email

We found yet another reason why the U.S. retirement crisis will be uglier than many retirees are prepared for…

You see, while retirees were napping last year, Congress and President Barack Obama were quietly stealing from their pension plans by enacting a little-known law called MAP-21.

Hidden in the wording of a new transportation bill, the act allows big companies to slash their contributions to pension funds.

The upshot?

The number of companies defaulting on their pension plans could balloon and bankrupt the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. (PBGC) insurance program – leaving retirees out in the cold.

"That smell of sulfur is what MAP-21 gives off," Jeremy Gold, a pension consultant, told The Fiscal Times. "It's got a smell about it of a deal made with devils."

That's bad news for retirees — or those about to retire – who are counting on a lifetime of payments from a pension plan.

Here's why…

MAP-21: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

In 2012, the government faced a shortfall between current gas taxes and projected highway spending.

So how to raise the money?

To continue reading…

Investing Tips

This Single Statistic Scares Me to Death

By , Executive Editor, Money Morning - • Print | Email

A year ago at this time, a U.S. Federal Reserve study found that the median net worth of the American family fell by almost 40% between 2007 and 2010, wiping out 18 years of economic progress and cutting middle-class wealth back to levels not seen since the early 1990s.

A year later, a new study has found that – despite the continuation of the strongest-bull-market rebound in history – America's finances haven't improved.

The Retirement DerailersSM survey found that a staggering 90% of American investors (aged 50 to 70, and with $100,000 or more in investment assets) have been blitzed by at least one "derailer" – an unexpected event that has put a hefty dent in their retirement savings goals.

And when you drill down into the numbers, the story gets a lot worse.

Your Money

How 401(k) Fees Are Costing You 33% of Your Nest Egg

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning - • Print | Email

If you have a 401(k) chances are you're getting ripped off and you don't even know it.

With all of the associated 401(k) fees, the truth is you could be losing as much as 33% of your retirement nest egg to the financial advisors who run your plan.

Typically, these fees are completely buried in your 401(k) statement– and even if you do manage to find out how much they are, the fees won't seem like much at first glance.

But overtime, the fees can literally cost you a small fortune.

To continue reading, please click here...

Retirement

How Ben Bernanke Is Destroying Your Retirement

By , Money Morning - • Print | Email

Uncle Sam has an unfunded pension liability of $800 billion.

Corporate pension funds have an unfunded liability around $400 billion.

State and local pension funds have an unfunded liability in the tony neighborhood of $3 trillion.

That's over $4 TRILLION in UNFUNDED pension funds.

And if you're not lucky enough to be in a "defined benefit" pension plan (which fewer and fewer people are these days) there's undoubtedly an "unfunded liability" in your own savings – in other words, you haven't saved enough to retire.

It's a huge problem and it's getting worse. And there's one individual to blame for all that $4.2-plus trillion of money we need to find – Ben Bernanke.

Retirement

Obama Turns America's Retirement Dreams into Nightmares

By , Chief Investment Strategist, Money Map Report - • Print | Email

If you think the U.S. government will not – or cannot – seize your money the way the government in Cyprus is doing, check out page 18 of the President's Proposed Fiscal Year 2014 Budget of the U.S. Government.

That's exactly what he intends to do.

Not years from now. Not decades from now.

Today.

This is organized crime on an incomprehensible scale and, if it passes, it will be legal, too.

Retirement

A New Blueprint for Retirement Savings

By , Money Morning - • Print | Email

Last week we looked at how the 4% rule for retirement savings was no longer useful, and has left many retirees without enough money to enjoy their golden years. But there's another reason retirement savings aren't delivering enough for us to live on after we stop working. It's not just that we aren't doing the […]