I know this is a bold, and possibly controversial title, but retirement planning is broken and leaving people broke.  

The destructive narrative is, “work hard, save money in a retirement plan, wait and it will all work out in the long run.”

The reality is, without the ingredients of responsibility and accountability, there is no easy solution for retirement. Meaning, if we just work hard and set money aside, we are putting money into a market we have no control over. 

The institutions are winning though. Taking fees along the way. Convincing us to separate ourselves from our hard earned money, encouraging us to take it out of the business we know and put it into investments we don’t.  

Low interest rates are great for those borrowing money, but terrible for those wanting to take income from a retirement plan. Those low interest rates are not providing enough cash flow, so that even if you’re a millionaire on paper, you still may be living like a pauper. For example, if you could find 4% interest in a fixed income account, that is only 40,000 dollars a year per million in your retirement account. Oh, and that income is taxable if it isn’t coming from a Roth IRA.

The concept of retirement has robbed the public of the responsibility and accountability required with personal finance. It has become too easy to hand money over to so-called experts due to the busyness of business, kids, hobbies, and other obligations competing for our time.  

The reality is, we have more opportunity for time now than ever. For thousands of years people were limited and constrained with the monumental duty of providing for their family by having to hunt, farm or provide shelter with less technology, efficiency and access to resources. We have become addicted to saying yes to things less important than financial stability and freedom.  

Instead we run our kids back and forth to numberless activities and programs, we join groups, clubs, spend hours on social media, and worry ourselves with countless meetings and events. There is time for our finances, but the subtle lie that it is overwhelming, too complicated, or you can just set it and forget it by leaving it up to the experts has failed us and failed us big.  

When we abdicate responsibility in finance, there is little hope for economic independence. When I was writing Killing Sacred Cows I found a statistic from the U.S. Department of Labor that 95% of Americans were not able to retire at age 65. Retirement plans combined with Social Security and the like couldn’t cover their basic living expenses. That looks like a failed financial experiment to me.  

Read More: @Forbes