Retirement Planning: What the Financial Planners are Thinking

We have a multi-dimensional problem when it comes to retirement thinking. We want to pinpoint numerous factors in our retirement plan, when in fact, the effort might be wasted. Much like the physicist who wants to measure a particle, quantum mechanics explains that it cannot be done, in part because it would change the particle by trying to stop it. Making a retirement plan pause gives you no measurable assurance that where you are right now is going to be the right move somewhere down the road.

These financial planners, their opinion which many will still turn to even if their advice led us down this road in the first place, are still called upon to give direction. I have neighbors who fret over the fate of their retirement accounts yet as soon as a son or daughter wants to make a financial decision, the first step is to set up an appointment with a financial planner.

Now these planners are looking for a way to regain your trust - many still have your business but largely feel uncomfortable with the disappointed looks on your faces. To address this, they have begun offering some suggestions, which although not new, they are a shift from too much risk to finding a way to eliminate what they see as unnecessary risk.

In a recent article to financial planners, The Investment News offers some suggestions that will no doubt be taken by their lobby group to Washington. They think that Social Security will remain a part of a retirement plan. They do concede that fixing this program will require not only a cut in benefits but an increase in taxes. Not very imaginative but keep in mind, this group is not likely to waste too many braincells on a program that produces no profits.

Instead, they are focusing on readjusting their client's portfolio from (age-appropriate) risk to vanilla risk (read that as a long-term relationship with folks who seek a way to get ahead by taking a much slower vehicle). This could add as many as ten years to your working life.

The net effect of working longer - besides working longer - is a more fully funded plan. But that funding will not have realized its full potential without a certain amount of risk. Many planners, as they restructure your plan for you will move your money into more costly types of investments that, on the surface, offer less risk.

Not all index funds are created equally and the shift into target dated funds does not come cheap and in some cases, are not a proven way to soften risk. Index funds can suffer from what is known as style drift, a way to enhance the return of the index by taking on an actively managed methodology.

Target dated funds are still suspect. There is no proof they do what they promise and do it for less cost. I have had problems with fund companies selling these funds as the risk free, cost effective ways to save the retirement community. And planners have become one of the forward sales makers for this product.

Adding to the list of products this group is looking to sell to lawmakers is the right to annuitize retirement income at age fifty. The thinking here is so simple, it is almost backward thinking. They are suggesting that the investor in a defined contribution plan take their money and essentially take it off the table, guaranteeing it will be there when they retire. This would allow folks who were unsure about the future to "buy" an annuity, with its high fees and suspect growth aspect instead of switching to a lower risk platform.

The suggestion that employers begin a retirement plan for all employees that have failed to do so and docking pay to fund it, seems, at least on the surface, to be a good idea. A bit Orwellian but the strategy is worth looking at for all workers before something like this becomes law. After that, the employer may pick the plan and in doing so, may not fully understand their fiduciary responsibility. But then, they would probably hire a planner.