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Should Feds Rescue Retirement System, Too?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 31, 2008 Comment (9)Even before the recent collapse of investment values, the paltry sums in private retirement accounts caused concern if not alarm among pension and retirement experts. Now, the wolf is not only at the door but in the room, and is devouring what little remains of the financial future of millions of Americans.
Pretty much all of Washington is shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars to shore up the nation's financial system and restore liquidity to the global credit system. And there is growing if belated support for providing direct aid to millions of homeowners who otherwise can't afford to stay in their homes.
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The Best Retirement Blogs
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (14)Technorati, the leading catalog and ranking site for blogs, has identified the 10 most authoritative blogs that include retirement as one of their key topics. Here's a highlight reel of what's on their minds.
First, a little geekspeak. Technorati's authority rankings measure how many times a blog is linked to from other Internet sites. This is how Google weights its searches as well, with the idea being that the most heavily linked sites represent a solid and relatively unbiased measure of popularity and value to users. The blogs have to be known to Technorati, so it is using the ranking system as some not-so-subtle pressure to get blogs to link to Technorati. And blogs work the system as well.
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Back to Work? Check Tax, Social Security, Medicare Impacts
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2008 Comment (5)One of the clearest messages from financial advisers is that retirees should consider going back to work if their nest eggs have been badly hit by investment losses.
Easier said than done. The economy is shedding jobs at a scary pace, and it's widely expected the slowdown will get worse and last well into next year if not 2010.
Still, in an economy as large as ours, there are always opportunities. We'll also be seeing part-time jobs replacing full-time positions. Further, our well-publicized economic travails reportedly are scaring away immigrants, and there will be some domestic employment benefits of this trend.
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Market Advice for Retirees
Tweet Share on Facebook October 21, 2008 CommentMisery may love company, but enough's enough. After getting brutally hammered by market declines that are end-of-days irrational, is there any relief for retired folks? And just how are we going to recover the more than $2 million in value that's been lost from our retirement accounts?
Maybe you see a silver bullet here, but I sure don't. A lot of Nobel Prize-winning economists have been telling us the world won't end. How comforting. Meanwhile, government leaders are still searching for effective solutions, and professional investors are setting miserable examples with panicked runs for whatever exits they can find. Markets have recovered a bit, but only a bit, and the prospect of an extended recession has dampened any hope for a quick rebound.
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It's Time to Make Lemonade
Tweet Share on Facebook October 17, 2008 CommentDuring the 1980s, when my children were little, inflation was out of control, the Soviet Union was still in business, and the world was a pretty scary place. How would my kids be able to have good lives and the kinds of choices I was fortunate enough to enjoy?
I muttered this to a friend one day, and he shot back with this thought: "If you're 20 years old, it's always a good time to be alive."
He was right.
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The Best Life
Philip Moeller, contributing editor for U.S. News Money, writes about achieving success and happiness in older age. He also is a research fellow at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College.
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