The Dismal State of Retirement in America: The Disturbing Facts...

1) Americans are broke,

2) the real estate market is still in a secular decline,

3) stock prices are in a decade long morass,

4) real (inflation-adjusted) incomes are falling,

5) public pension plans are insolvent,

6) our Social Security & Medicare entitlement programs are structurally unsound.


If the pillars that seniors have relied on in the past fail to miraculously regenerate (and there is certainly no reason to believe they will), all that most retirees will have will be freshly printed greenbacks that come from a never ending policy of federal deficits and an obliging Federal Reserve.

Unfortunately, the inflation that will result from such a policy will sap most of the purchasing power that those notes possess.

In other words, for most people retirement is now an illusion, and many Americans will find themselves working far longer, for far less real compensation, than they ever imagined.

The quicker we realize this, and plan accordingly, the better off we'll be.