Happiness is a positive cash flow.

Editor,

Everybody knows you can't time the market, and everybody knows high-rolling gamblers pump up bubbles until they burst. So it is foolish to assume that when you reach a particular age, at a particular point in time, your portfolio will be at its maximum value and from that point on it will yield a steady, optimum percentage every year.

Besides, unless you are a very wealthy individual, it is basically impossible to live off a portfolio. Corporations went off-shore to exploit dirt-cheap labor and eliminated pensions to remain "competitive" (with themselves). Social Security has been under attack by the moneyed class since it was conceived. A livable old age pension provided by the government is not in the interests of people whose business is stuffing everybody else's money into their own pockets.

Market populism, as explained by Thomas Frank in "One Market Under God, " is a scam. 401k's, striking it rich in the market, mutual funds, and brokerage houses are all shell games good for making already rich people richer and taking the working class's eye off the ball: a realistic, livable, old age pension.

Happiness is a positive cash flow. "Investments" are for suckers.

re: "For Older Investors, Old Rules May Not Apply" (6/20/2009)