For your parents and grandparents generation, retirement investing guidelines consisted mainly of preserving their assets. Back then, such advice made perfect sense, because retirement represented a shorter period of a persons life. The new retirees not only live longer, but have to contend with the current inflation rate. Our economy is based on global performance. The world is smaller and anything that occurs across the globe reaches our shores.
Big industries are no longer dependent on only what is happening in America. What happens across the sea does not stay there; it makes its way here. Our economy is much more sensitive to world events. Oil, gas, and raw material prices are increasingly affecting the product cost and the price to bring it to market.
Today retirement requires a whole new way of thinking. For the first time in history the economy depends on the countries of the world for cooperation and stability. As past generations had to rely on the U.S, economy for the relative safety of their investments, this generation has to make sense of changes in the world market. The domino effect now is dependent on a world economy. That means watching the...