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Huffington Post's Slam on Annuities is Uninformed and Way Off Base, Says Columnist

"The article clearly illustrates a lack of understanding of the annuity marketplace and the challenges of generating lifetime retirement income. And it does a major disservice to the public by labeling annuities 'toxic' and believing that there's an 'annuity scam' being put in place by Congress."

Working Post-Retirement Is the New Reality for Many Midlifers

Retirement is taking on a whole new meaning for many midlifers: Some 57 percent of workers over 60 would seek a new job after retirement, according to a recent survey by Harris Interactive? for CareerBuilder and PrimeCB.com.

The Only Thing Worse Than a Nearly Empty Nest Egg Is a Ripped-Off One

What's amazing is not only that the people who pull off financial abuse rarely do a perp walk ... but that as far as I can tell no government agency requires them to post any fines/penalties on their websites or note them in handouts to prospective clients.

The Real Retirement Crisis

"The crisis is that the economic collapse that started in 2007, triggered by fraudulent and risky financial schemes, wiped out many Americans' personal savings and decimated many state and city pension investments.... The crisis is that the median retirement savings for all working-age households -- according to the Federal Reserve -- is $3,000, and only $12,000 for those near retirement. And that retirement insecurity is made worse by state-sponsored pension theft in places like Illinois, where public employees are being robbed of pension funds they earned and contributed to over decades of public service."

The Parts of the 401(k) Disaster Story 60 Minutes Didn't Report

Excerpt: Steve Kroft's '60 Minutes' report Sunday, '401-K Recession,' good as it was, covered only a small portion of the whole retirees-are-now-officially-screwed story. It's a fascinating and infuriating story, with far too many angles for a 13-minute segment.... The whole sordid 401(k) saga largely involves big corporations dumping their pension plans and pushing 401(k)'s and then brazenly gaming the bankruptcy laws. The story has, sadly, largely gone unnoticed and unreported these past few months during the stock-market meltdown and housing/bank scandals.

Health Care Reform: More Than One-Fourth Of Americans Expect To Pay The Mandate Tax

"Twenty-six percent of Americans expect to pay the individual mandate tax associated with health care reform, according to a national poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted in late July ... Yet under the new law an estimated 2 percent of Americans will likely wind up paying the 'individual mandate,' a penalty levied upon those who don't carry any insurance ... Wording may be part of the issue. When the same poll asked if they expect to pay a health reform 'fine,' only 12 percent of respondents answered in the affirmative."

The Tao of Dow: The Five Spiritual Gates of Investing for Retirement

"It takes equal amounts of faith, however, to choose not to play the market and live your financial life off the grid. 1. Determine whether you're an optimist or a pessimist -- and whether it is important for you to be consistent....2. Come to terms with thinking you can know the year of your death. ...3. Ask yourself if you define spiritual attainment as being able to put your savings in the hands of forces beyond your control and forgetting about it for 20 years?...4. Decide whether trusting financial advice is the same as having faith in the world....5. Make a decision about how you want to live your life."

The Very Big Thing That's Missing from the President's New 401(k) Proposals

"The President ... thinks the costs of 401(k) plans are prohibiting employer participation. But this is wrong. This is not a cost thing. It's an education thing. Many [small companies] who do not offer these plans are not aware of how easy and inexpensive they are to setup. They are busy people and have many other things to worry about. And many ... who do offer these plans have low participation rates because their employees aren't educated about the benefits."

The Most Important Symbol for Investors Is 'DOL'

"Early next year, the DOL will decide whether to issue a proposal that will require all advisers to 401(k) plans and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to have a 'fiduciary duty' to the participants in those plans and the holders of those accounts. This decision will have a major impact on the $12 trillion in assets now held in 401(k) plans and IRAs."

The Senate's Plan for Our Retirement: Inadequacy for All

"[T]he reason why the U.S. is among the pension poorest in the world isn't that not enough people are covered by a 401(k) plan, but that those who are receive a measly matching contribution equal to 3 percent of pay. That compares to 9 percent for Australia, 11.8 percent for Denmark, 8 percent for Hungary, 6.5 percent for Mexico, 7.3 percent for Poland and 9 percent for Slovakia. A 2008 report on retirement savings for Australians projected that Australians in their 20's and 30's are projected to have assets of between $500,000 to $700,000 when they retire -- compared to a median balance of less than $100,000 for the typical American retiree. To simply require all U.S. employers to set up an inadequate plan is a disservice to the American population."