Only 20 Years To Save?

By Random Roger's Big Picture - Roger Nusbaum | March 4, 2010, 7:03 am

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There was an interesting comment thread on the Seeking Alpha version of yesterday's post about Paul Farrell.

A couple of people noted that even if the market is a "rigged game" you can still do well while a couple of people noted that the fact that the market is rigged (in their opinion) will bite us all eventually.

One reader noted that there is no way to "beat Wall Street." Rigged or not beating anyone is not the reason most people participate in the market, at least I hope not. To repeat, the goal of stock market investing should be that it can help you have enough money when you need it occasional downturns of varying magnitudes notwithstanding.

Creditwritedowns had a guest post by Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners. I believe it was a letter to that firm's clients. The post was titled Retirement Lottery and opened up with the belief that that most people have about 20 years to save for retirement. Many people get started saving in a meaningful way around 40 giving them about 20 years to build up what they can. He goes on to say that a bad ten years makes the job very difficult and a bad 20 years makes it impossible.

What he says rings true to a point but only if the context is in the way people have previously planned for what retirement used to be--perhaps this is his point and it was lost on me. There will obviously be many many what now articles about retirement and maybe they will be useful or maybe not and while some folks will indeed get by retiring at 65 to play golf everyday this will not happen for anywhere near as many people as it used to.

People have to come up with their own solutions but as I have blogged countless times that I think the easiest way to do this is reduce overhead, find some sort of work that is fun and that can relieve some of the burden of the portfolio and get religion about living withing ones means.

Short post today.
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