Jason Zweig

We're all making a gamble that the money set aside for retirement, either by us, by our company, or by the government, will be there

when we need it, when we retire.

And it doesn't always feel like a gamble, but there's always some risk inherent in it.

People like to call this the three-legged stool, but the stool is a little shaky.

I think all the legs of that stool are a little shaky.

I think it's crazy to put those assets there.

And I think it's crazy from their point of view.

They have nice lives.

They make a fortune.

The companies are huge.

They already own their yachts and whatever it is they want.

Why are you going into this dangerous territory just to make your business a little bit bigger?

And that represents such a big potential problem in the future.

I think there's a tendency among a lot of people today who comment on retirement plans to glamorize defined benefit pension plans and to say, oh, back in the 1950s, you know, oh, leave it to Beaver.

It was a great time to retire.

You know, you sat in front of your black and white TV and you spent your monthly pension check and you lived a good life.

You had the American dream come true.

In fact, the good old days were kind of bad.

Or maybe another way of putting it is the good old days never were.

If a whole bunch of people are investing to insure themselves against the risk that they'll run out of money and they're putting their money in the stock market, it makes very good sense to remember that