How Fed Policy Has Devastated Three Generations of Retirees
By: John Mauldin
Market Oracle
Sep 04, 2013
Retirement can be an unpleasant prospect if you’re not ready for it. This week’s Outside the Box is in in-depth report on Americans’ retirement prospects, which comes to us from Dennis Miller, a columnist for CBS Market Watch, and editor of Miller’s Money Forever. It’s not just the Boomers who are trying (often in vain) to retire this decade; it’s also Gen-Xers, who are the most indebted generation (and the one that saw their assets depreciate the most in the Great Recession). The Millennials haven’t been spared, either; in fact, over time they may be the hardest-hit, since near-zero interest rates are keeping them from compounding their savings in the early years of their careers, when the power of compounding is greatest. In addition, the difficult post-college job market and sky-high levels of student loans have kept most Millennials out of the stock market, and they are far less likely than previous generations t o open a retirement savings account.
This is not a problem the government is going to be able to fix. One way and another, Social Security will do less for people in coming years, not more. We are all going to be more dependent upon our own resources if we want to have anything that resembles what we have come to think of as a secure and comfortable retirement.
The Rest…HERE
