Academic

HMM: Stop Saving So Much for Retirement. ?You get the concept of living it up in your 60s. But how?

By Glenn Reynolds

HMM: Stop Saving So Much for Retirement. “You get the concept of living it up in your 60s. But how does not saving leave you with more income than saving? A lot of is due to the aforementioned benefits of delayed retirement: The age-70 retirees have to stretch their nest egg over eight fewer years of life, and they collect a bigger Social Security benefit. But a lot of it also comes from earnings on savings they already had.” My advice: Save. Hard times are likely down the road. But hey, I could be wrong, and that would be great.

UPDATE: A Wall Street reader emails:

The irony of current retirement planning is that everything coming out of Washington is geared toward punishing savers.

Bernanke drove short-term interest rates to zero by lowering the fed funds target, and then he cut longer-term interest rates by buying most of the treasury bonds issued over the last few months.

Obama tried to increase taxes on dividends and capital gains, and will presumably try again…making stock ownership problematic.

No need to review Washington’s policy blunders in the housing market, which accounted for an enormous chunk of many folks’ net worth.

A conspiracy minded person would marvel at all these things converging just as the baby boomers start to retire.

Well, good thing I’m not one of those, then.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on March 02, 2011 (boomark / email).