In retirement planning, there can never be any guarantees. That’s why it’s critical that these tools are used continually and consistently. A magician never gives the audience’s eyes a chance to wander.
Education
Never belittle the question or the person asking the question. These are sincere queries that represent commonly held beliefs. These beliefs live a Schrodinger Cat-like existence, being generally not quite true and not quite false. It’s critical, for the benefit of all retirement savers, that these questions be asked and that fiduciaries encourage their asking. This is the only way that allows the fiduciary to respond in the second noteworthy way: By using these questions to refute misconceptions and promote good retirement saving decision-making.
This is not to say the 401k is perfect and that there’s no need to improve it. These improvements, though, would be more like tweaks rather than wholesale changes.
But, as the cliché goes, “What about the children?” Arguably, it is minor children who have the best (and easiest) opportunity to shield themselves from a retirement crisis. They have the advantage of time (to maximize the benefits of compound interest).
While Social Security is not going “bankrupt,” it’s clear it will have to change in both a fundamental and disruptive way.
In this retirement plan version of the game “Who Killed Cock Robin?” we can identify three macroeconomic trends that slayed the pension plan, once the giant among all retirement plans. But, where does the 401k fit in?
Despite those imagined rosy memories, actual history shows, with a few notable exceptions, pensions were never as universal or as lucrative as imagined.
The traditional lifestyle arc, along with the traditional career arc, may push millennials away from Roth style savings later in life.
Why did Philadelphia’s fund grow slower than Boston? Davis says, “If they had been invested for the same time at the same rate, there would be no difference, so it would appear that Philly got lower returns on funds invested than Boston.”
Franklin was not merely an advocate of entrepreneurism, he was also one heck of a financier. His will actually calculated the precise growth he expected from the trusts and further instructed the trustees in terms of allocating those assets at the end of the first hundred years and again at the end of a second hundred years upon which the trust would be terminated.
