Some good money reads from around the Web.
A strength of blogs (present company excepted!) is how they snappily zero in on the tastiest morsel in a smorgasbord of geeky data.
Update: This data is apparently an urban myth! Another strength of the Internet is its ability to spread information regardless of their truth, so let’s put the brakes on this one. Thanks to reader Tony who pointed to this rebuttal [1] from Boeing.
Such was the case on Five Cent Nickel [2] this week, which trawled this piece of writing on longevity [3] [PDF] for one arresting table.
It shows how Boeing Aerospace workers who retired later died sooner:
| Retirement Age | Age at Death |
|---|---|
| 49.9 | 86.0 |
| 51.2 | 85.3 |
| 52.5 | 84.6 |
| 53.8 | 83.9 |
| 55.1 | 83.2 |
| 56.4 | 82.5 |
| 57.2 | 81.4 |
| 58.3 | 80.0 |
| 59.2 | 78.5 |
| 60.1 | 74.5 |
| 61.0 | 74.5 |
| 62.1 | 71.8 |
| 63.1 | 69.3 |
| 64.1 | 67.9 |
| 65.2 | 66.8 |
(Source: “Actuarial study of life span vs. retirement age” by Ephrem Cheng)
As blog author Nickel says:
Perhaps the scariest bit of data here is that those that work through the traditional retirement age of 65 only cash their retirement checks for an average of 17 months.
17 months!
Is that what you have in mind when you think about your future? That your “retirement years” will be reduced to little more than a “retirement year”?
One chunk of data does not a systematic review make: Boeing staff might have been particularly over-stressed, younger retirees might have been extra healthy (and they almost certainly were extra-wealthy, which has all kinds of positive impacts on lifespan).
Still, if jobs were a food additive, then going on this data they wouldn’t make it past the rat-slaughtering lab tests.
From the money blogs
- Job loss = job creation – Investing Caffeine [4]
- Liquidity risk in the good times and bad – Swedroe/MoneyWatch [5]
- The evolution of personal investing – Rick Ferri [6]
- The Golden Girls solution to retirement – Steve Vernon [7]
- The case for a small cap and value tilt – Oblivious Investor [8]
- Fooled by fluency – The Psy-Fi blog [9]
- The right weight for Glencore – The Munro Blog [10]
- Discovering Benjamin Graham (on Kindle [11]!) – A Grain of Salt [12]
- Beware of buying into tech IPO hysteria – The Portfolioist [13]
- …especially as the market hates them older [Chart] – Business Insider [14]
- The complete history of oil since 1861 [Chart] – Business Insider [15]
- Is there an easy way to earn six figures online? – The Digerati Life [16]
Mainstream media stories
- Irradiation and E. Coli – The Economist [17]
- Is volatility a contrary stock market indicator? – New York Times [18]
- The dangers of a retail banking ring-fence – Peston/BBC [19]
- Wealth managers are bad for your…wealth [told you [20]!] – Motley Fool [21]
- Berkshire Hathaway the cheapest it’s been for decades – Motley Fool [22]
- China investors can’t see the wood for the trees – FT [23]
- Super-prime London property sales surge – FT [24]
- ‘ABC’ fund safety labeling even more confusing, postponed – FT [25]
- New breed of annuities to account for deteriorating health – FT [26]
- FSA urges “extreme caution” over schemes to unlock pensions early – FT [27]
- Fidelity admits headline index fund fee is 1/3 of true cost – Telegraph [28]
- Post Office’s potential NS&I beater (but it’s taxed) – Telegraph [29] (more [30])
- How to use power of attorney to protect your finances – Independent [31]
- The way we eat now – The Independent [32]
- [Risky] higher-yield pseudo-bonds for green investors – The Guardian [33]
- 39th President Jimmer Carter: End the global drugs war – New York Times [34]
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