Monthly Archives: March 2012
“How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free” by Ernie J. Zelinski
“How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free” by Ernie J. Zelinski While this website is focused on the financial aspects of retirement, I could not resist sharing with you a book that I just read, about a completely different dimension of retirement. In fact the book is subtitled as “Retirement wisdom that you won’t get […]
Withdrawal Strategies in Retirement (expanded)
Withdrawal Strategies in Retirement (expanded) Clearly, unless you are in the fortunate position of having been a longtime employee with an employer providing a guaranteed, generous and indexed pension plan (e.g. you’re a retiree from a government job), withdrawal rates from your accumulated assets will be one of the more stressful decisions that you’ll have […]
Withdrawal Strategies in Retirement
Withdrawal Strategies in Retirement Suppose that you just retired and you are trying to figure out how much can you withdraw per year from your accumulated asset base. Traditionally people used to say “never touch the principal, only withdraw the interest” and that retirees should be invested in guaranteed fixed income instruments only! The problems […]
Changes Needed for Pensions-Make Your Voices Heard
Changes Needed for Pensions-Make Your Voices Heard Changes are brewing in the how companies have to account for pension liabilities (affecting shareholder equity) and how long they will have to make up the shortfall (ten versus five years). Requiring explicit balance sheet recognition for the pension liability may encourage companies to reduce the liability by […]
(Mostly) Great News for Retirees/Pensioners
(Mostly) Great News for Retirees/Pensioners Welcome to the first issue of RetirementAction. I hope you wil return to help evolve and improve this periodic communication on how to take control of our financial future. Mr. Flaherty, Canada’s Minister of Finance showed up on Halloween with a trick and a treat. Much ink has been spilled […]
Florida Property Tax: State rejects proposed compromise on SOHA Constitutional Challenge – Is Florida missing an opportunity for renewal?
Florida Property Tax: State rejects proposed compromise on SOHA Constitutional Challenge – Is Florida missing an opportunity for renewal? There are currently several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Florida’s discriminatory real estate taxation laws. At the heart of the cases is the fact that owners of properties with similar market value are charged vastly different […]
Benoit Mandelbrot’s “The (Mis)behavior of Markets”
Benoit Mandelbrot’s “The (Mis)behavior of Markets” Mandelbrot’s book is both interesting and disturbing. Interesting because he not only takes the reader through the basic ideas behind the history/evolution of finance theory as practiced today, but also some of the stories of the people who were the originators of the ideas; disturbing, because he asserts (reminds […]
Pension Research Council Papers on Decumulation and Robust DC Pension Plans
Pension Research Council Papers on Decumulation and Robust DC Pension Plans The Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research at UPen’s Wharton provides access to readers interested in pension to current research papers from high calibre sources. They have just posted 15 new research papers. I found a couple of these papers particularly interesting, one […]
Impressions of the Whitehorse Pension Conference
Impressions of the Whitehorse Pension Conference In a Nutshell There were no recommendations and no actions coming out of the meeting. Another conference planned for May 2010. Despite the data presented and the optimistic assumptions used to generate it, the conclusion of the Mintz report is that (mostly) all is well with Canada’s pension system. […]
Wall Street Revalued by Andrew Smithers
Wall Street Revalued by Andrew Smithers Andrew Smithers’s book “Wall Street Revalued” is not a light read, but it is interesting reading. It is based on two principles: (1) assets can be objectively valued, and (2) it is important for central bankers to adjust policies when asset values are substantially inconsistent with underlying values. Not […]
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