The Baby Boom Will Never Retire - Half Have No Retirement Savings At All

Some of you might remember the glossy highly produced advertisements back in the early 1980s when Wall Street decided it was time to turn American retirement plans into casinos. Theslow and agonizing death of the pension plan was supposed to be replaced by the beautiful and wonderful world of the 401(k) plan. Save for 30 years and in the end, you will be a millionaire just like your friends on Wall Street that sincerely care about your financial future. Of course since then, we have found out about junk bond scandals, mutual fund fees that make loan sharks look conservative, and of course the financial shenanigans of giving people toxic mortgages that were essentially ticking time bombs of destruction. This was the industry that was put in charge of helping you plan for your future. We are now a generation out from those slick ads and the results have been disastrous for most Americans. A recent analysis found that half of US households 55 and older have no money stashed away for retirement.

The new retirement is no retirement

Planning for retirement takes time. Saving money is a slow process. There was a time when simply stashing money into CDs and savings bonds was enough to have a nice nest egg if you were diligent enough. Yet for the last decade, most banks are paying close to zero percent on their savings accounts thanks to the Fed’s low rate policy to juice the markets. Since the true inflation rate [10] is much higher, you are essentially letting your money rot away. So the only other option is for people to invest in the stock market or try to leverage into real estate.

The stock market is largely an arena for the wealthy. Half of Americans own no stocks at all. Now after a generation, we are finding out that most people did not follow in the footsteps of those glossy over produced retirement ads:

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