[haha]

Here is an interesting aside from the article:

Mr. Kotlikoff relies on financial planning software he has been developing called ESPlanner. It has been used by a number of economists and academics who are studying retirement savings. Mr. Kotlikoff used it recently to reach the startling conclusion that over a lifetime a plumber has a higher standard of living than a physician with a general practice because the doctor starts earning later, pays higher taxes and high malpractice insurance premiums.

Don't really know how to interpret that in terms of lifetime satisfactions, rather than lifetime earnings. But medical school looks like a hard slog, not to mention the four years of college and 4 years or so of PG training.

And of course, in either career you get a bit of mierda on your fingers, so not much to choose there either.

So I guess the same guy who theoretically could do either might conceivably become the world's smartest plumber, make a ton of money and retire early to a life of young women in foreign lands. Not so much worry about deaths and malpractice either.

Back to topic-- unless equity markets crash, I plan to wait until 69 or 70 to draw SS. To me, the extra money should things get tight as I get older trumps having a bit more to spend right now. If equities should drop to where I would consider a very high equity allocation, I'll start my SS immediately to avoid depleting high powered cash resources.

Ha