For Those Of Us Saving For Retirement

It's Not Looking Good...
Just this month, I've caught wind of several newsworthy items that could have your retirement plan on life support in the coming years. For example:
1. A comment by the President that he may craft a way to bailout the poor person who was duped by the sub-prime slime. That's really bad news for taxpayers, and it means you could lose more of your precious retirement plan to taxes.
2. There are more existing homes for sale than there has been since 1991, which is bad news if you were counting on your real estate to be your retirement plan.
3. The projected deficit for 2007 is now US$158 billion, which means you definitely can NOT count on social security to fund your retirement.
4. The number of NYSE stocks hitting 52-week lows has exceeded those hitting 52-week highs six straight weeks in a row recently.
5. The EAFE Index (that tracks international stock markets in Europe, Australia, and the Far East) now has a better trailing 1, 3, 5 and 10-year return than the S&P 500.
6. Oil climbed to an all-time high this week - which means you may blow your retirement savings on gasoline and heat in the later years of your life.
7. And of course, the Bernanke Fed decided to cut rates by a half point this week, which sent the dollar - and your dollar-denominated retirement plan tumbling to a 15-year low (although it did give domestic stocks a nice boost).
In other words, the news is saying what you probably already knew: The dollar is falling, the domestic markets are lagging, the spendthrift U.S. government can not be trusted, and the housing market is in shambles.