Retiring Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Fall Short - thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases -

Retiring Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Fall Short -  thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases -



The 401(k) generation is beginning to retire, and it isn't a pretty sight.

The retirement savings plans that many baby boomers thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases.

The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse.

This analysis uses estimates of 401(k) balances from the end of 2010 and of salaries from 2009. It assumes people need 85% of their working income after they retire in order to maintain their standard of living, a common yardstick.

Facing shortfalls, many people are postponing retirement, moving to cheaper housing, buying less-expensive food, cutting back on travel, taking bigger risks with their investments and making other sacrifices they never imagined.

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"Inevitably, we find that, for the average person, there is not enough there," says financial adviser Paul Merritt of NTrust Wealth Management in Virginia Beach, Va., who has found himself advising many retirement-age people with too little savings. "The discussion turns out to be: What kind of part-time work do you want to do after you retire?"

He has clients contemplating part-time work into their 70s, he says.

Tax-deferred 401(k) retirement accounts came into wide use in the 1980s, making baby boomers trying to retire now among the first to rely heavily on them.

The problems are widespread, especially among middle-income earners. About 60% of households nearing retirement age have 401(k)-type accounts, according to government data, and those represent the majority of most people's savings. The situation is less dire for those in a higher income bracket, who tend to save more outside their 401(k) accounts and who have more margin for error if their retirement returns fall below the recommended 85% figure.

Steven Rutschmann, 60 years old, manages the buildings and grounds at a Midwest research facility. His employer recently offered him a bonus if he retired early.

Mr. Rutschmann's 401(k) is well into six figures. His wife has a 401(k) and expects a small pension from her nursing job. An outdoorsman, he dreams of spending time hunting, fishing and hiking.

So he consulted a financial planner at Ernst & Young and learned that even with the bonus, his savings could run out before he turns 85. Now he expects to work for several more years.

"I was disappointed," says Mr. Rutschmann, whose 401(k) balance was damaged by the financial crisis and who still has a large mortgage.

In general, people facing problems today got too little advice, or bad advice. They didn't realize that a 6% annual contribution, with a 3% company match, might not be enough.

Some started saving too late or suspended contributions when they or their spouses lost jobs. Others borrowed against 401(k) accounts for medical emergencies or ran up debts too close to their planned retirement dates.

In the stock-market collapses of 2000-2002 and 2007-2009, many people were over-invested in stocks. Some bailed out after the market collapse, suffering on the way down and then missing the rebound.

Initially envisioned as a way for management-level people to put aside extra retirement money, the 401(k) was embraced by big companies in the 1980s as a replacement for costly pension funds. Suddenly, they were able to transfer the burden of funding employees' retirement to the employees themselves. Employees had control over their savings, and were able carry them to new jobs.

Read more - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959604576152792748707356.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Borders, the second-largest bookstore in the United States, has filed for bankruptcy and will close 200 of its 642 stores -

Borders, the second-largest bookstore in the United States, has filed for bankruptcy and will close 200 of its 642 stores -

Borders, the second-largest bookstore in the United States, hasfiled for bankruptcy and will close 200 of its 642 stores. It may close another 75 if the company can’t get concessions from landlords.

You might think Borders was the first major casualty of the digital book boom, but the store’s problems may actually be tied up in the previous digital revolution. An Engadget commenter who claims to be a former Borders employee makes a good point to that end:

“Borders made a big commitment to selling CDs & DVDs — large sections of the stores were devoted to this content in the 90s and early 00s. new stores were designed and built in an effort to give multimedia a large segment of the store space.

“In the end, Borders has failed because [its] stores got too big and the demand for CDs and DVDs dropped — there was just no way to pay the bills.”

Even Best Buy is cutting back on CD and DVD space these days, but while the electronics retailer has plenty of other hot products to populate its shelves, such as video games, computers, smartphones and tablets, Borders can only fall back on books. And that’s going to get trickier as e-books become more popular.

If Borders wants to survive now, it will need a better digital book strategy than the one it has.The couple stores I visited recently kept their Kobo and Cruz e-readers locked away, with no area for hands-on demos. By comparison, my local Barnes & Noble has a Nook kiosk at the front of the store, with an employee standing by to answer questions. I don’t expect Borders to develop its own e-reader now, but it should at least try harder to sell its partners’ hardware.

Not that it necessarily matters; Kobo, whose digital book store powered Borders’ e-book service, is taking the news in stride. Kobo Chief Executive Michael Serbinis wrote in a blog post that “Kobo is an independent, financially secure company,” and that Borders’ e-book sales represented “a minority of Kobo’s worldwide sales.” I get the sense that Borders needs Kobo a lot more than vice versa.

Read more -http://technologizer.com/2011/02/16/borders-goes-bankrupt/

China to spend $1.3T on new rail, road infrastructure -

China to spend $1.3T on new rail, road infrastructure -

A booth for Daqin Railway Co at a railway equipment expo in Beijing. Shares of Daqin Railway may rise as the nation's transport infrastructure is upgraded, according to Morgan Stanley. (Photo / China Daily)

China plans to spend at least $1.3 trillion over the next five years to ease transport and freight bottlenecks, creating a windfall for companies such as Daqin Railway Co and Anhui Expressway Co.

Rising wages and land costs in the coastal provinces that have underpinned China's industrial development for three decades are forcing manufacturers, including Ford Motor Co, Pfizer Inc and Foxconn Technology Group, to move production inland to cut costs. That's strained China's ability to transport goods within the country, prompting a spending program the size of the Swiss economy during the past two years on roads, railways and airports.

"A huge part of China hasn't been part of the global economy," said Brian Jackson, an emerging-markets strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong. "As that changes, it's going to have a similar effect to what you saw with coastal China joining the world economy."

The development of inland provinces, such as Shanxi and Anhui, is driving an expansion of rail capacity that may help shares of Datong-based Daqin Railway rise 86 percent to 16.03 yuan ($2.4), according to Morgan Stanley. Hefei-based toll road operator Anhui Expressway may rise 44 percent to HK$9 ($1.2) as inland growth is boosted by companies moving from the east coast, says Macquarie Capital Securities.

China has spent $569 billion on fixed-asset investment in railways and roads over the past two years. That may help to more than double the country's share of world exports to 23 percent in the next decade, according to China International Capital Corp economist Zhang Zhiwei.

Over the next five years China will spend as much as 3.5 trillion yuan on railway construction, 750 billion yuan on rail rolling stock, 3.5 trillion yuan to 4 trillion yuan on highways, 300 billion yuan to 350 billion yuan on airports, and 900 billion yuan on ports, according to Macquarie.

The nation's 2 trillion yuan in spending on a high-speed rail network will give it almost as much track by next year as the entire rest of the world, even before the 16,000-kilometer network is completed in 2020. More than 7,000 kilometers of track have already been laid and another 6,000 kilometers are scheduled to open by 2012.
Read more -http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/7293180.html 

Iran naval ships to cross Suez Canal on Monday - first passage of Iranian naval ships through the canal since 1979 -

Iran naval ships to cross Suez Canal on Monday - first passage of Iranian naval ships through the canal since 1979 -

 Two Iranian naval ships will sail through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean on Monday, a Suez Canal official said, in what will be the first passage of Iranian naval ships through the canal since 1979.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has described Iran's plan to send the ships through the canal en route to Syria as a "provocation."

The official said the vessels would arrive at the southern mouth of the canal in the Red Sea's Gulf of Suez on Sunday. They would enter the canal in the northern convoy on Monday morning and complete the journey to the Mediterranean by evening.

An Egyptian army source said on Friday that the military, which has been running Egypt since President Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power on February 11, had approved Iran's request to send the ships through the canal.

The decision had posed an early diplomatic headache for Egypt's interim government. Cairo is an ally of the United States and has a peace treaty with Israel but its relations with Iran have been strained since the 1979 revolution.

Egypt's Western allies are watching for hints of any shift in policy toward its Middle East neighbors.

Read more - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41683978/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

12 Things You Need to Know About the Uprising in Wisconsin -

12 Things You Need to Know About the Uprising in Wisconsin -

What's happening in Wisconsin is not complicated. At the beginning of this year, the state was on course to end 2011 with a budget surplus of $120 million. As Ezra Klein explained, newly elected GOP Governor Scott Walker then " signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit."

Walker then used the deficit he'd created as the justification for assaulting his state's public employees. He used a law cooked up by a right-wing advocacy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC likes to fly beneath the radar, but I described the organization in a 2005 article as "the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money." Similar laws are on the table in Ohio and Indiana.

Walker's bill would strip public employees of the right to bargain collectively for anything but higher pay (and would cap the amount of wage hikes they might end up gaining in negotiations). His intentions are clear -- before assuming office, Walker threatened to decertify the state's employees' unions (until he discovered that the governor doesn't have that power).

But he's spinning the measure as something else -- a bitter pill state workers must swallow in order to save Wisconsin's government. So the first things you need to know are:

1. Wisconsin's public workers  have already "made sacrifices to help balance the budget, through 16 unpaid furlough days and no pay increases the past two years," according to the Associated Press. The unions know their members are going to have to make concessions on benefits, but they rightly see the assault on their fundamental right to negotiate as an act of war.

2. There are already 13 states that restrict public workers' bargaining rights and it hasn't helped their bottom lines. As Ed Kilgore notes,  "eight non-collective-bargaining states face larger budget shortfalls than either Wisconsin or Ohio," and " three of the 13 non-collective bargaining states are among the eleven states facing budget shortfalls at or above 20%." 

3. This isn't just about public employees. What even a majority of the protesters don't know is that Walker's law would also place all of the state's Medicaid funding in the hands of the governor.  State senator Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton -- one of the Dem law-makers who fled the state to block a vote on the bill -- told local media that this amounted to "substantial Medicaid changes" that put "the governor, all of a sudden... in charge of Medicaid, which is SeniorCare, which is BadgerCare ...and he has never once said what he intends to do” with those programs. But the provision led journalist Suzie Madrak to conclude that "the end game for all this is to defund state Medicaid programs and make it impossible to serve as part of the new health care safety net."

4. Health-care costs, rather than workers' greed, are what has driven up the price of employees' benefits. But generally speaking, those public sector health-care costs have grown at a slower clip than in the private sector.

5. Public employees' pensions account for just 6 percent of state budgets.

This has nothing to do with the state's fiscal picture. Aside from potentially undermining Wisconsin's public health-care system, it's really about destroying the last bastion of unionism in the American economy: public employees. As Addie Stan wrote on AlterNet's front page:

Walker is carrying out the wishes of his corporate master, David Koch, who calls the tune these days for Wisconsin Republicans. Walker is just one among many Wisconsin Republicans supported by Koch Industries -- run by David Koch and his brother, Charles -- and Americans For Prosperity, the astroturf group founded and funded by David Koch. The Koch brothers are hell-bent on destroying the labor movement once and for all.

Consider these facts:

6. Last year, more working people belonged to a union in the public sector (7.9 million) than in the private (7.4 million), despite the fact that corporate America employs five times the number of wage-earners.  37 percent of government workers belong to a union, compared with just 7 percent of private-sector employees.

7. Whether in the public or private sector, union workers earn, on average, 20 percent more than their non-unionized counterparts. They also have richer retirement and health benefits -- the “union compensation premium” rises to almost 30 percent when you include those bennies.

That workers can still negotiate from a position of strength somewhere in the US is simply unacceptable to the right, and that's what this is about. As you might expect, the tool they're using in their campaign is a pack full of lies and distortions about public employees. Here are some answers to those falsehoods:

8. Public sector workers have, on average, more experience and higher levels of education than their counterparts in the private sector (they are twice as likely to have a college degree). 

9. When you adjust for those factors, they make, on average, 4 percent less than their private-sector counterparts.

10. Like any group of workers with a high union density, they have better benefits, on average. But even including those benefits,   state and local employees still make less in total compensation than they would doing the same work in the private sector.

11. In 2007, the average pension for a public sector worker was $22,000. Not exactly caviar dreams.

12. Many public employees are not eligible for Social Security -- those pensions, and whatever they can put away on their own, is all that they'll have in their golden years.

Read more - http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/479560/12_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_uprising_in_wisconsin/

Two dozen members of a Massachusetts college hockey team have fallen ill from nitrous dioxide poisoning at rink -

Two dozen members of a Massachusetts college hockey team have fallen ill from nitrous dioxide poisoning at rink -



Nearly two dozen members of a Massachusetts college hockey team have fallen ill after a suspected case of nitrous dioxide poisoning at a Rhode Island rink.
A spokesman at Milton Hospital in Massachusetts says the 23 players on the Curry College team were held overnight and expected to be released Saturday.
Officials believe the poisoning was caused by fumes from a Zamboni machine used to prepare the ice during a hockey game Thursday against Johnson & Wales University at the Rhode Island Sports Arena.
On Friday morning, the Curry players began reporting to Milton Hospital with symptoms including dizziness, trouble breathing and coughing up blood.
Hospital spokesman Jason Bouffard says tests showed they were exposed to nitrous dioxide.
It doesn't appear that any Johnson & Wales players fell ill.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2011/02/19/mass-hockey-team-sickened-fumes-ri-rink/#ixzz1ESZcV3Dq

The world's biggest family: The man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren -

The world's biggest family: The man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren -


e is head of the world's biggest family - and says he is 'blessed'  to have his 39 wives. 
Ziona Chana also has 94 children, 14-daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren. 
They live in a 100-room, four storey house set amidst the hills of Baktwang village in the Indian state of Mizoram, where the wives sleep in giant communal dormitories.

The full monty: The Ziona family in its entirety with all 181 members

You treat this place like a hotel: With 100 rooms the Ziona mansion is the biggest concrete structure in the hilly village of Baktawng

Mr Chana told the Sun: 'Today I feel like God's special child. He's given me so many people to look after. 
'I consider myself a lucky man to be the husband of 39 women and head of the world's largest family.'
The family is organised with almost military discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi organising her fellow partners to perform household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals. 
One evening meal can see them pluck 30 chickens, peel 132lb of potatoes and boil up to 220lb of rice. 

Coincidentally, Mr Chana is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as he wants.

Feeling peckish? The senior ladies of the Chana family show what it takes just to make a meal

The wives and I: Mr Ziona Chana poses with his 39 wives at their home in Baktawang, Mizoram, India

He even married ten women in one year, when he was at his most prolific, and enjoys his own double bed while his wives have to make do with communal dormitories. 
He keeps the youngest women near to his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping further away - and there is a rotation system for who visits Mr Chana's bedroom.
Rinkmini, one of Mr Chana's wives who is 35 years old, said: 'We stay around him as he is the most important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village. 
She says Mr Chana noticed her on a morning walk in the village 18 years ago and wrote her a letter asking for her hand in marriage.

Shared bedroom: A look inside the four-storey mansion, Chhuanthar Run - The House of the New Generation

Another of his wives, Huntharnghanki, said the entire family gets along well. The family system is reportedly based on 'mutual love and respect' 
And Mr Chana, whose religious sect has 4,00 members, says he has not stopped looking for new wives. 
'To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry,' he said. 
One of his sons insisted that Mr Chana, whose grandfather also had many wives, marries the poor women from the village so he can look after them. 

Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people on Facebook and Twitter -

Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people on Facebook and Twitter - 

These days, with Facebook and Twitter and social media galore, it can be increasingly hard to tell who your "friends" are.

But after this, Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my "friends" even real people?

In the continuing saga of data security firm HBGary, a new caveat has come to light: not only did they plot to help destroy secrets outlet WikiLeaks and discredit progressive bloggers, they also crafted detailed proposals for software that manages online "personas," allowing a single human to assume the identities of as many fake people as they'd like.

The revelation was among those contained in the company's emails, which were dumped onto bittorrent networks after hackers with cyber protest group "Anonymous" broke into their systems.

In another document unearthed by "Anonymous," one of HBGary's employees also mentioned gaming geolocation services to make it appear as though selected fake persons were at actual events.

"There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas," it said.

Government involvement

Eerie as that may be, more perplexing, however, is a federal contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, located south of Tampa, Florida, that solicits providers of "persona management software."

While there are certainly legitimate applications for such software, such as managing multiple "official" social media accounts from a single input, the more nefarious potential is clear.

Read more - http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/18/revealed-air-force-ordered-software-to-manage-army-of-fake-virtual-people/

6 Charts Which Prove That Central Banks All Over The Globe Are Recklessly Printing Money -

6 Charts Which Prove That Central Banks All Over The Globe Are Recklessly Printing Money -

If the U.S. dollar is being devalued so rapidly, then why does it sometimes increase in value against other global currencies?  Well, it is because everybody is recklessly printing money now.  The 6 charts which you are about to see below prove this.  The truth is that it is not just the U.S. Federal Reserve which has been printing money like there is no tomorrow.  Out of control money printing has also been happening in the UK, in the EU, in Japan, in China and in India.  There are times when one particular global currency will fall faster than the others, but the reality is that they are all being rapidly devalued.  Unfortunately, this is a recipe for a global economic nightmare.

Right now you can almost smell the panic as it rises in global financial markets.  Investors all over the world are racing to get out of paper and to get into hard assets.  Just about anything that is “real” and “tangible” is hot right now.  Gold hit a record high last year and it is on the rise again.  In fact, it just hit a new five-week high.  Demand for silver is becoming absolutely ridiculous right now.  Oil is marching up towards $100 a barrel again.  Agricultural commodities have exploded in price over the past year.  Many investors are even gobbling up art and other collectibles.

Paper money is no longer considered to be safe.  All over the globe investors are watching all of the reckless money printing that has been going on and they are becoming alarmed.  An increasing number of investors and financial institutions are putting their wealth into hard assets that are real and tangible in an effort to preserve their wealth.

The other day, a reader of this column named James sent me some charts that he had put together.  I thought they were so good that I asked him if I could include them in an article.  These charts show how central banks all over the globe have been recklessly printing money.  Over the last 30 years virtually the entire world has developed a great love affair with fiat currency….

So is everyone printing money?

The U.S. is printing lots of money…..

Source, The St. Louis Fed

The Bank of England is printing lots of money…..

Source: The BoE

The EU is printing lots of money….

Source: The ECB

Japan is printing lots of money…..

Source: The BoJ

China is printing lots of money…..

Source: The People’s Bank of China

India is printing lots of money…..

Source: Reserve Bank of India

Of course anyone with half a brain can see where all of this is ultimately headed.  In the end, inflation is going to spiral out of control and we are going to witness financial implosion on a global scale.

So why don’t these nations just adopt sound money?

Well, it turns out that if you are a member of the IMF, you are specifically prohibited from having gold-backed currency.

Yes, you read that correctly.

In fact, U.S. Representative Ron Paul once sent an open letter to the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve asking about this and he received no response.  The following is the content of that letter….

Dear Sirs:
I am writing regarding Article 4, Section 2b of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Articles of Agreement. As you may be aware, this language prohibits countries who are members of the IMF from linking their currency to gold. Thus, the IMF is forbidding countries suffering from an erratic monetary policy from adopting the most effective means of stabilizing their currency. This policy could delay a country’s recovery from an economic crisis and retard economic growth, thus furthering economic and political instability.
I would greatly appreciate an explanation from both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve of the reasons the United States has continued to acquiesce in this misguided policy. Please contact Mr. Norman Singleton, my legislative director, if you require any further information regarding this request. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
Ron Paul
U.S. House of Representatives

Sadly, the truth is that the global elite don’t want nations to start adopting gold-backed currencies.  They want countries to use fiat currencies that they can openly manipulate for their own benefit.

At this point, every nation on earth (to the best of my knowledge) uses a fiat currency.  All of the major global currencies are being continually devalued.  In fact, there are times when counties will purposely devalue their currencies even more rapidly in order to gain a competitive advantage in world trade.

This is why so many investors now have such an aversion to paper currency.  It starts losing value the moment you take possession of it.

In some areas of the world, “gold fever” is absolutely exploding.  For example, China imported five times as much gold in 2010 as it did in 2009.  On the Shanghai Gold Exchange, trading volume soared 43 percent during the first 10 months of 2010.

Gold, silver and other precious metals are now seen as a great hedge against inflation worldwide.  Investors all over the globe are demonstrating a strong preference for “real money” over “paper money”.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that some tremendous imbalances are being built up in the global financial system.  The central banks of the world must continue to inflate these bubbles with constantly increasing amounts of paper money and debt in order to keep the game going.  If at some point the reckless money printing comes to a screeching halt it is going to unleash hell on global financial markets.

But if all of this reckless money printing continues we are eventually going to see horrific inflation all over the planet.  In fact, we are already seeing significant inflation happening in many areas of the globe.  Almost every single day a new headline about inflation in China seems to pop up in the financial news.  Rising food prices are sparking unrest in the Middle East and elsewhere.  Even U.S. consumers are starting to see some uncomfortable price increases at the gas pump and in the supermarket.

So it is not just Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that is off his rocker.  The whole world is going crazy with money printing.

Hopefully this whole thing is not going to end as badly as many of us fear that it will.  But right now the central banks of the world are pumping unprecedented amounts of cash into the global financial system, and those in the global financial system are funneling a very large percentage of that cash into hard assets.  Unless something changes, that is going to mean that prices for basic necessities such as food and gas are going to continue to rise.

This is quite a fine mess that we are in.

Does anyone see a way out?

Read more - http://blacklistednews.com/6-Charts-Which-Prove-That-Central-Banks-All-Over-The-Globe-Are-Recklessly-Printing-Money-/12762/0/13/13/Y/M.html

Obama helped coach Sasha's team Saturday in suburban Maryland because a regular parent-coach was unable to attend -

Obama helped coach Sasha's team Saturday in suburban Maryland because a regular parent-coach was unable to attend -



President Obama stepped in to help coach his younger daughter's basketball team even when she wasn't there.
White House officials said Obama helped coach 9-year-old Sasha's team Saturday in suburban Maryland because a regular parent-coach was unable to attend.
But Sasha and her older sister, Malia, are skiing in Colorado this weekend with their mother and some friends.
The president often attends Sasha's Saturday morning basketball games at a community center in Maryland. Aides said they did not know if Obama had helped coach before. They did not provide results of Saturday's game.
Journalists accompanying Obama's motorcade to the games are not allowed inside the gym.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/19/obama-coaches-sashas-team-sasha/#ixzz1ERzN1zp2