This article is making the rounds at M*'s boards and will probably be in a few Sunday papers. It's a rehash of a problem that's been slowly gaining attention over the last few years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/bu...rint&position=
Investors are being encouraged at "seminars" to ER so that they can roll their company savings account over to an IRA in a brokerage account. A trusted broker "invests for growth" with 72(t) withdrawals but of course it's tech in March 2000.
Some of these "investors" were attempting ER with retirement portfolios of less than $400K. Even if you're living the lifestyle of some of this board's veterans, that's a challenge.
Not all of the brokers worked for Snively & Whiplash, either. Some of them (admittedly a minority!) are good people who misguidedly think they're doing good work. No matter how terrible they felt after seeing the effects of their advice, they're not the ones who have to go back to work.
No brokers' advice can substitute for a thorough expense analysis (based on your actual spending habits over the last few years) and a realistic projection of capital costs over the next decade or two. Anything else (especially of the "80% of pre-retirement expenses" ilk) will promote a false sense of security that might last through the first couple ER years... but then watch out. Even slogging through all this board's SWR posts won't help you if you don't have a clear picture of your expenses and a reserve for "surprises".
If you're still determined to ER (after reading this article as well as Terhorst, Dominguez, Bernstein, Dacyzczyn, and others) then at least peruse Bud Hebeler's website for a conservative engineer's realistic approach of using negative feedback to control withdrawals. His book's well worth a trip to the library-- its comments on "Social Security widows" will make anyone think twice about ER. (Hey, my spouse has her own darn pension.)
http://www.analyzenow.com/