Media hype wrong again

Cross posted at Collecting my Thoughts

So much for all the gloom, doom and disaster the media were promoting. Who are their sources? The people went out on Black Friday and increased spending by 3% over last year. And for once I'm glad. The jobs they saved may be their neighbors or their own. Now we'll get all the qualifying stories from the journalists and consultants who got it wrong. The "yes, but," excuses.

Anyone in retirement years can see we're heading for a bad time, just open your latest statement. It's not like 2004 when the Kerry/Edwards campaign continually bad mouthed the economy for over a year, Bush, new jobs, etc. and the media chimed right in. It's not 2006 when the Democrats took over Congress by campaigning on the bad economy (that wasn't) and then rode it into the ditch by making no corrections the president wanted. The week after the 2004 election it was all good economic news again. Because we don't have time for it turn around like it did in the late 80s, and the late 90s and after 9/11, it's going to be a challenge for retirees--especially if they don't fix that 70.5 age for drawing down IRAs based on Dec. 31, 2007 balances. People my age didn't grow up expecting everything, so we are probably better off than the younger boomers who thought life would always be a bigger house, or a new leased car every other year, or a vacation in Aruba.

Does Retirement Kill You? No.

Didn't think so. All the retirees I know are too busy to die. Now, retirement accounts. That's another matter.

Abstract:
The magnitude of the effect that health has on the retirement decision has long been studied. We examine the reverse relationship, whether or not retirement has a direct impact on later-life health. In order to identify the causal relationship, we use unexpected early retirement window offers to instrument for retirement behavior. They are legally required to be unrelated to the baseline health of the individual, and are significant predictors of retirement. We find that there is no negative effect of early retirement on men's health, and if anything, a temporary increase in self-reported health and improvements in health of highly educated workers. While this is consistent with previous literature using Social Security ages as instruments, we also find some evidence that anticipation of retirement might also be important, and might bias the previous estimates towards zero.

"Does Retirement Kill You? Evidence from Early Retirement Windows"
by Norma B. Coe, Maarten Lindeboom
(November 2008) IZA DP No. 3817

Cross posted at Collecting My Thoughts