The Retirement Myth: What You Must Know Now to Prosper in the Coming Meltdown of Job Security, Pension Plans, Social Security, the Stock Market, Hou

by Craig S. Karpel

An examination of the Social Security system predicts that it will not be available for those now in the workforce and argues that society must allow the elderly of tomorrow to work as long as possible. $50,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Genres: Finance, Business, Economics, Personal Finance, Nonfiction, Entrepreneurship

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1995

Reviews

[Chandrasen Rajashekar]

Rich dad poor dad book
Page 226

[Dee Renee Chesnut · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Kmart froze my defined benefit plan in 1996 at my age of 45, this book saved me. It gave me more good information than I ever received from the educational materiels from my employer. I used with this books's strategies and learned how to save for a much better retirement with the new 401(k) plan.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Skinny: An unsung but highly prescient personal finance book that should be read by people of all ages as they prepare for both the next year as well as decades into the future.

The Good: This is a bit of an obscure book but it is well worth the read. It was cited in "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" but surprised it has not gotten more recognition. So much of the book (printed in 1995) is so prescient about what is going on today. It forecasted the need for more self-reliance, side-hustles, better savings, job automation, and even work-from-home. As a society we need to prepare for and embrace older age. We simply cannot expect the public to give us a free ride at an arbitrary age. That literally is not economically feasible and is not what people should even want. Also love the focus on the older community. Respect your elders and aspire to be one yourself. They are an asset not a liability! So many good nuggets throughout the book and it is a fairly quick read too.

The Bad: The various rundowns on specific policies in the past are both dry and presumably outdated but that also goes to show how tangled the whole welfare system is.

[Michael Sweeney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long term eye opener. Too many people have their head stuck in the sand and need to come up with a plan for 20, 30, 50 years out.....insert book here. A book in nudging you to start getting active/creative in planning for your "golden years."

[Callie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book on the recommendation of Rich Dad Poor Dad's book, but it's actually kind of disappointing.

While it did have some good information in some spots it was a bit verbose where it didn't need to be and a bit outdated (some of the "prediction dates" have already passed).

It spends a LOT of time telling people to continue to work when they're older, which I plan on doing anyway because who wants to be bored later and have nothing to look forward to doing during the day, the problem with that is it seems so much time is dedicated to saying this different ways, without really expanding on the idea of "retirement myth". I am not saying it doesn't mention or go into good information about the retirement myth, it just didn't really expand on it the way I expected it to considering the many many subtitles on the book cover.

While I read it cover to cover, I feel that it could have been stated in a much more condensed version, so overall, some good material, but a lot of extraneous stuff too.

[Eric M · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a very interesting perspective on the aging population of baby boomers and their prospects in what would be their "retirement" years. It also yields some thoughts for future generations on issues to consider during aging, as well as issues facing those generations when they find they are needed to care for the aging baby boomers either personally or through increased economic output for care facilities. There was some excellent statistical references, though at this point some of the information is dated, I plan on spending some time looking at some of the updated numbers to satisfy my own personal curiosity.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

A 1995-era book for Boomers by a pre-Boomer (the author is technically a tail-end Silent, but he writes and thinks like a Boomer) who is dismayed at the Boomers' complete unpreparedness as they Boom their way towards an imaginary retirement in a system the author thinks is about to collapse.

Let's get the bottom line out of the way. This is a bad and bo... [see the rest on my book review site.]