Reply to Why are people obsessed with putting $$ in retirement?

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Reply to "Why are people obsessed with putting $$ in retirement?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP is at least partly right. The Economist recently ran a cover story about a worldwide savings glut - never in the history of the world have people saved as much as now. And all these savings create a hunt for yield, which is part of what has bid up housing markets in the rich world - think Sydney, London, SFO, Toronto, etc. This is sort of why interest rates are so low. Too much supply of capital has bottomed out the demand (interest). This is the systemic side of things.

At a personal level you also require far less money than you think. And if you are willing to work until 70 you are golden. [/quote]

Link? I'd be surprised if the said this was the case across the board for all segments of the population. With the increasing concentration of wealth at the top, I have no problem believing that global savings has increased because the wealthy have more money to save than they did before, and people/companies are getting stingier about making investments for the long-run rather than returning profits to investors. But there's no way anyone's going to argue that the average middle class family with a couple of kids who debates whether to take the little bit left over every month and put it towards students loans or into retirement (and is foregoing a college fund in the hopes their kids will get scholarships or can work their way through school) is saving too much.

Also, at least in the U.S., the dwindling social safety net means people need to save more for their retirement than they used to. It's not just the loss of pensions, it's the very real concern about whether there will be anything meaningful in the way of social security and medicare/medicaid to help support us in retirement that we can't just assume will work itself out. Of course we need to save more than our parents did.[/quote]

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