Retirement

I want it, and I want it NOW! Sound familiar? While that petulant behavior may remind you of your toddler, it's surprisingly common in adults, too. That's because it is an example of "temporal discounting" — our tendency to want things now rather than later. It seems we are hardwired for instant gratification.

Financial advisors have an increasingly important role to play in building sustainable retirement income strategies for their clients. But as is the case with most investment advice, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. To help advisors and investors sort through the issues here is a list of essential reading and resources.

Today retirees face five perils: inflation, investment, longevity, withdrawal, and healthcare risk. Providend CEO Christopher Tan says retirees need a plan not only to cope with these risks but also to provide reliable income.

Lauren Foster rounds up recent articles and resources that you may have missed during the last couple of week.

In economic and financial matters, paternalism — protecting an individual from himself or herself — comes in many guises with one common theme: the maximization of welfare. Yet it raises a question with no easy answers: When exactly should individuals or investors be protected from making their own bad choices?

In his presentation at the CFA Institute Wealth Management 2013 conference, financial adviser and blogger Michael Kitces offered a framework for tackling two fundamental client questions: How much can I safely spend from this portfolio without needing to worry about the markets? And, if I want to spend X, how much money do I need in the account to safely retire?

Understanding dementia and its financial implications, as well as a host of other eldercare issues, extends well beyond attorneys: It is something every financial adviser with elderly clients, or clients approaching retirement, should know more about.

One of the challenges investment professionals face is figuring out effective ways of helping some clients become smarter about their decisions. This is key to offsetting what Nobel Laureate Robert C. Merton calls "financially dysfunctional behavior."

The slightest rise in rates here in the US could devastate federal, state, and municipal budgets nationwide. All of which goes a long way to explaining the Fed’s brute determination to keep interest rates miniscule.

M. Barton Waring has succeeded in creating one of the definitive works on the structure and management of defined benefit plans. This indispensable guide for pension advisers dispels any notion of easy solutions to the problems of defined benefit plans, especially underfunding. His sensible solutions are within our grasp if we choose to accept them.