I am reading a very simple exercise book, in this case extolling the many benefits and ease of use arguments for indoor rowing. He says, " Many of you will want to know why, what if, etc ad infinitum." He suggests various reasons for this behavior, which he considers beside the important point of getting up every morning and rowing.
Same is true of retirement finance. All these well paid gurus have all sorts of often conflicting ideas about what we are 'sposed to do, but they actually always leave some important things unsaid. They have to, because a truly inclusive and robust solution does not exist, except work like hell for longer than you want to, do without much of what makes young adulthood fun, and be damn careful (and lucky) with your marriage. But who would buy this? They would even make a minority of the championship non-eaters of marshmallows found here.
The real truth is that one can give it a shot, and if it doesn't work ACA success has shown that it is easy enough to get accustomed to the dole. This is the real fallback in Europe and America.
To briefly return to guruology, if some unsophisticated person reads about how marvelous annuities are, and then rushes out to buy one, he may one day be quite sorry when it turns out that inflation is not permanently dead after all.
Another howler is "probability of ruin is zero, because no one would go on spending at the level that is not working out." Well, maybe not if she retired on $3mm and lived with a 2% withdrawal rate- ie. was very "over reserved", or has a good public sector pension, or is one of the fairly rare retirees that can go back to work at a salary close to their salary prior to retirement, or could severely downsizing their standard of living without in the process causing a divorce. Extremely vulnerable are retired men with young children and non-working wives. Their retirements could end, with them sitting in jail, unable to pay child support at the level deemed appropriate by family court, based on what they "could be earning".
People here tend to be lucky, but we don't all walk on water, so perhaps a bit of caution is warranted.
Ha