Warning: Stocks Will Collapse by 50%

It is only a matter of time before the stock market plunges by 50% or more, according to several reputable experts.

“We have no right to be surprised by a severe and imminent stock market crash,” explains Mark Spitznagel, a hedge fund manager who is notorious for his hugely profitable billion-dollar bet on the 2008 crisis. “In fact, we must absolutely expect it."

Unfortunately Spitznagel isn’t alone.

“We are in a gigantic financial asset bubble,” warns Swiss adviser and fund manager Marc Faber. “It could burst any day.”

Faber doesn’t hesitate to put the blame squarely on President Obama’s big-government policies and the Federal Reserve’s risky low-rate policies, which, he says, “penalize the income earners, the savers who save, your parents — why should your parents be forced to speculate in stocks and in real estate and everything under the sun?”

Billion-dollar investor Warren Buffett is rumored to be preparing for a crash as well. The “Warren Buffett Indicator,” also known as the “Total Market Cap to GDP Ratio,” is breaching sell-alert status and a collapse may happen at any moment.

So with an inevitable crash looming, what are Main Street investors to do? One option is to sell all your stocks and stuff your money under the mattress, and another option is to risk everything and ride out the storm.

But according to Sean Hyman, founder of Absolute Profits, there is a third option.

“There are specific sectors of the market that are all but guaranteed to perform well during the next few months,” Hyman explains. “Getting out of stocks now could be costly.”

How can Hyman be so sure?

He has access to a secret Wall Street calendar that has beaten the overall market by 250% since 1968. This calendar simply lists 19 investments (based on sectors of the market) and 38 dates to buy and sell them, and by doing so, one could turn $1,000 into as much as $178,000 in a 20-year time frame.


“But this calendar is just one part of my investment system,” Hyman adds. “I have also designed a Crash Alert System that is designed to warn investors before a major correction as well.”

(The Crash Alert System was actually programmed by one of the individuals who coded nuclear missile flight patterns during the Cold War so that it could be as close to 100% accurate as possible).

Hyman explains that if the market starts to plunge, the Crash Alert System will signal a sell signal warning investors to go to cash.

“You would have been able to completely avoid the 2000 and 2008 collapses if you were using this system based on our back-testing,” Hyman explains. “Imagine how much more money you would have if you had avoided those horrific sell-offs.”

One might think Sean is being too confident, but he has proven himself correct in front of millions of people time and time again.

In a 2012 interview on Bloomberg Television, Hyman correctly predicted that Best Buy would drop down to $11 a share and then it would rally back up to $40 a share over the next few months. The stock did exactly what Hyman predicted.

Then, during a Fox Business interview with Gerri Willis in early 2013, he forecast that the market would rally to new highs of 15,000 despite the massive sell-off that was haunting investors. The stock market almost immediately rebounded and hit Hyman’s targets.

“A lot of people think I am lucky,” Hyman said. “But it has nothing to do with luck. It has everything to do with certain tools I use. Tools like the secret Wall Street calendar and my Crash Alert System.”

With more financial uncertainty than ever, thousands of people are flocking to Sean Hyman for his guidance. He has over 114,000 subscribers to his monthly newsletter, and his investment videos have been seen millions of times.

Culled from money news.com

Big gap in college graduation rates for rich and poor, study finds-Melissa Korn

A Berklee College of Music graduate thanks her mom on her mortarboard during the school's commencement in Boston, Saturday, May 10. 2014. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

College completion rates for wealthy students have soared in 40 years but barely budged for low-income students, leading to a yawning gap in educational attainment between rich and poor that could have long-lasting implications for the socioeconomic divide.

In 2013, 77% of adults from families in the top income quartile earned at least bachelor’s degrees by the time they turned 24, up from 40% in 1970, according to a new report from the University of Pennsylvania’s Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. But 9% of people from the lowest income bracket did the same in 2013, up from 6% in 1970.

“Education is one of the levers that we have in place to address income inequality. It offers the promise of achieving the American dream,” said Laura Perna, executive director of the Penn program. Yet the study’s findings suggest that “education isn’t fully living up to this promise.”

One small sign of progress is that more poor students are enrolling in college than they did 40 years ago. Forty-five percent of dependent 18- to 24-year-olds from the lowest income quartile—with family income of $34,160 or less—enrolled in college in 2012, up from 28% in 1970. While the college enrollment rate of the highest-income students—with family income of $108,650 or more—also increased, to 81% from 74%, the gap between the two did shrink.

Still, most of the poor students who pursue college degrees fail to make it all the way to graduation. About one in five college students from the lowest income bracket completed a bachelor’s degree by age 24 in 2013, about flat with the 1970 figure. Among students from top-earning families, meanwhile, 99% of students who enrolled completed their degrees, up from 55% in 1970.

College access has been a major area of focus for the federal government and individual schools, with such initiatives as free campus visits and application assistance for low-income students. The Obama administration’s fiscal 2016 budget plan calls for $860 million to fund its major college-readiness programs, as well as more than $300 million for GEAR UP, which targets low-income students specifically.
But keeping poor students on track once they’re at college remains a challenge. That’s due in part to academic issues, since those students’ high schools may not have prepared them for the rigors of a college course load, as well as financial ones.

Federal Pell Grants, which are directed to the neediest students, have been covering a smaller share of overall college costs in recent years. While the maximum amount, $4,690, took care of more than half the bill for average tuition, room and board in 1974, Pell funding has remained fairly flat. In 2012, the maximum $5,550 award covered just 27% of those expenses.

While the report focuses on college access and completion, one thing it doesn’t cover is whether there would be jobs for those students if everyone actually got a bachelor’s degree, said Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“If we were to get everybody through a bachelor’s degree, where in the workforce would they be absorbed?” he asked, noting that many current college graduates are already working in jobs that don’t require such degrees.

 Culled from yahoo finance

Wall Street Week Ahead: Valuations may hurt small caps, despite job growth-Reuters

A Wall Street sign is pictured in front of the New York Stock Exchange, open during Winter Storm Juno, in the Manhattan borough of New York January 27, 2015. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

By David Randall

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The good news from Friday's jobs report may already be reflected in the prices of the smallest U.S. stocks.
With nearly all of their revenue coming from the United States, the companies in the Russell 2000 should be the most obvious beneficiaries of a growing U.S. economy.
Yet fund managers and analysts warn that small-cap stocks already trade at valuations high above long-term averages, even after significantly lagging large-company shares in 2014. This could put a cap on further gains.
"Small-cap companies have something of an advantage in this economy. But investors have figured that out," said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors in New York.
Companies in the Russell 2000 look expensive compared with their history, said Steven DeSanctis, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in a Feb. 3 note to clients.
The trailing price-to-earnings ratio of the index is at 22.7, which is 40 percent more than its long-term average of 16.2. Its price-to-sales ratio of 1.6 is nearly 67 percent higher than its long-term average.
High valuations already appear to be cutting in to returns, DeSanctis said. The Russell 2000 is up 11.9 percent over the last 12 months, compared with a 16.7 percent gain in the large-cap Standard & Poor's 500 index over that time. Year to date, both indexes are up less than 1 percent.
Still, Steven Raineri, the lead portfolio manager of the Franklin All-Cap Value fund, increased his stake in small-company stocks by 25 percent over the last year in part because of signs of improvement in the housing market and in consumer confidence. Overall, multi-cap fund managers increased their stake in small-cap stocks 10 percent over the same time, according to Morningstar data.
"We're happy if there's a disconnect and we can find companies we like at prices we're comfortable with," Raineri said.
He has been adding to his holdings in companies such as Gibraltar Industries Inc, a $500 million market-cap company that makes mailboxes and other products used in the construction of housing developments, and Griffon Corp, an $813 million market-cap company that manufactures garage doors and landscaping products. Both companies derive 70 percent or more of their revenue from the United States, according to Thomson Reuters.
Overall, in the last five years, 81.3 percent of revenue for Russell 2000 companies came from the United States, compared with 64.3 percent of revenue for S&P 500 companies, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 257,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday, well above forecasts. The dollar index rose slightly more than 1 percent on the news.

Raineri said that he is more concerned about the dollar continuing to rise quickly than higher share prices for small-cap stocks. A rapid jump in the dollar could be a sign that investors are seeking safety, and could draw investors away from small-cap stocks, he said.

"If the dollar gets too strong too fast, it's going to be taken as a sign of the global economy weakening," he said. 

(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; editing by Matthew Lewis)

Record spending spurs race by govts for Chinese tourist dollars-By Patturaja Murugaboopathy and Ryan Woo

A Chinese tourist takes a photograph of a shark swimming towards him at the Sydney Aquarium April 9, …

By Patturaja Murugaboopathy and Ryan Woo

REUTERS - GRAPHIC: Chinese tourist spending: http://link.reuters.com/zej93w

Embassies are re-writing visa rules and governments are hammering out aviation pacts as record spending by Chinese travellers sets off a race around the world for a share of the Chinese tourist dollar.

Chinese spending on international travel in 2014 rose to $165 billion from $129 billion in 2013, the biggest percentage increase in two years, according to data released by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange last week.

Chinese disposable incomes have been steadily rising and would-be travellers got an additional boost in the past year from favourable foreign exchange rates, with the yuan appreciating more than 10 percent against the yen and the Australian dollar. The gains versus the euro have been even greater, at more than 14 percent, and the yuan set a record against the single currency last month.

Governments near and far are keen to get their countries onto Chinese itineraries. In November, the United States signed a landmark deal with China extending one-year visas issued to Chinese travellers to up to a decade. This year Malaysia and Indonesia are planning visa exemptions, while Thailand is considering exempting visa fees, which were briefly suspended last year. Australia in January signed an agreement with China allowing more passenger flights from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou with immediate effect.

Air traffic data for China's big airlines confirms a rising preference for overseas travel in the world's most populous nation. Air China's international routes recorded 14.6 percent growth in 2014 in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs), a gauge of traffic, versus 6.1 percent for domestic routes, Reuters calculations show. China Southern Airlines' international RPK growth was 20.2 percent versus 10.0 percent domestically. China Eastern Airlines posted international RPK growth of 4.4 percent.

(Reporting By Patturaja Murugaboopathy in BENGALURU and Ryan Woo in SINGAPORE; Additional reporting by Shilpa Murthy in BENGALURU; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

Culled from Reuters

WILL YOUR MEDICAL HEALTH SUPPORT YOUR PENSION?- Odunze Reginald

Their desire of every pensioner is to care of his or herself during old age, but is it  retiree financially stable to shoulder such responsibility , bearing in mind that the period 60 and above comes with various lingering issues including medical health problem.

The medical and health challenge is of varying dimensions, high blood pressure, stroke, obesity, heart attack, cancer of the breast, prostate cancer   that and other medical issues comes with old age.

With the developing state and coupled with the inability of the African governments to have a viable medical programme for old people as prevalent in other continents like Europe, North and South America, Asia , Australia etc. Africa countries with the exception of few African countries like South Africa, Egypt etc have not been able to develop a medical programme for old people and senior citizen. Even where it is said to be existing, there are bottlenecks, corruption and other vices militating against it.

So what do they do in such economy where there are little on non existing medical program for old people, what will the old people do in such a situation, will they resort to the little or no  contribution of their pension pot.

In a seminar organized in 2010 in Rock view Hotel in Abuja in conjunction with NHIS, and invitations open to PFAs, the organizers of the seminar were of the opinion of integrating retiree for NHIS, major stakeholders were in attendance including the then Director General of NHIS, the chairman of NUP , National Union of Pensioners. Stakeholders brainstorm on the gains of the programme and the positive it will have on the retirees. But has been the bane of Nigeria Government, the seminars were not put in to use.

So what should the retiree do in such an economy, bearing in mind the lack of government in such a vital issue?   That calls an adequate re examination by the government in such regards and the input of retirees towards achieving good health at their retirement age.  That calls for sacrifices on the part of the contributors to set aside an additional contribution to take care of medical bills, should such crop during old age.

Also the medical history of the intending retirees should of utmost necessity be a guiding principle, especially those that family medical history on such diseases.

What are the top Social Security scams targeted at the elderly?

Elderly recipients of Social Security benefits are a highly targeted group for online con artists. Some scams operate over the phone, typically through callers impersonating Social Security Administration (SSA) employees who solicit personal information from senior citizens. Other scams originate online using email or online forms which request personal information by preying on the victim's limited understanding of online technology.
A common scam targets Social Security recipients through email, otherwise known as a phishing scam. The Canadian government's Get Cyber Safe initiative explains that 156 million phishing emails are sent each day across the world, and 80 thousand people fall victim to these scams. In Social Security phishing, victims most often receive an email from an individual impersonating the SSA and offering a new benefit available for claim. In order to claim the benefit, the victim is asked to fill out a form detailing highly sensitive information, such as his or her name, Social Security number, license number, and other information that can be used to perpetrate fraud. The goal of this type of scam is often to steal the senior citizen's identity so the impersonator can open up new credit cards, bank accounts and even receive benefits in the victim's name.
In another common type of Social Security scam, people impersonating Social Security employees call senior citizens to conduct fraudulent over-the-phone surveys. These surveys solicit similar information to the email scam, including names, Social Security numbers and bank account information. The impersonators will often tell the victim this information is required in order to process additional benefits the victim is entitled to. They may also claim that due to a computer glitch, the victim's personal information is lost and he or she will not be able to receive benefits until the new information is gathered.

Potential victims of Social Security scams can protect themselves by examining any email or phone correspondences they receive which ask for highly personal information. The SSA has released an official statement stating that its representatives do not request personal information through email. Scam emails claiming to be from the SSA may appear authentic, but a phone call to the recipient's local Social Security office can help validate suspicious information and identify con artists.

While social security scams have some unique features, they are similar to all information phishing scams in that they can be avoided. The SSA states that most official Social Security forms and emails come from .gov addresses. Other types of addresses are likely to be phishing scams. Any suspicious information-gathering activity from someone claiming to work for Social Security should be reported to the SSA so that a fraud report can be filed, protecting others from fraudulent activity in the future.

Culled from investopedia

The impact of customer’s satisfaction in the Pension Industry-Odunze Reginald

Napoleon Hill devoted over twenty five years of his life to trying to discover why so few men succeed and so many fail. Le Boeuf (1987:133). He went on to say that he interviewed and studied the lives of numerous great achievers from all walks of life such as Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison and Woodrow Wilson and presented the essence of his findings in his classic bestselling “Think and grow Rich”

One of Hill’s best recommendation is to cultivate the idea and habit of rendering more and better service than that for which you are paid” and before you realized it the world is willingly paying you for more than you do” today we call that building perceived value, seventy years ago Napoleon Hill called it “the law of increasing returns” Le Boeuf (op cited)

Pension Fund Administrators are all offering the same service, a homogenous service and the service is basically the following:

Retirement Savings Account

Investment of the contributor’s and retiree’s fund

Customers support services and relationship management

Retirement seminars, pension forums and enlightenment programmes.

Therefore the extra mile the PFAs goes in satisfying the customers will go a long way in enhancing customer’s loyalty. Customer loyalty is essential for the pension fund administrator because it gives the edge they need in the event of the regulatory body National Pension Commission, PenCom, lifting the transfer window.

National Pension Commission ,PenCom has stated that the pension fund is now far in excess of 4.5 Trillion Naira that is good for investment in other sectors of the economy, but analyst are of the view that with the rate of corruption investing such fund may the debar the pensioners from the accessing their fund at the point of retirement.

The desire of the PFAs will be to retain their customers and possibly acquire new ones in the event of the transfer window. But achieving such feat rest squarely on their ability to offer and render more and better services to their customers. Customers are now more sophisticated and their expectations are becoming more and more increasing. They can network and definitely affect the workings of PFAs if not giving their expectations.

Pensioners protest in Rivers, urge Jonathan’s intervention - Tony John

Hundreds of pensioners yesterday marched to the Government House, Port Harcourt, Rivers State to register their grievance over non-payment of monthly allowance and non-harmonisation of pensions estimated at N3 billion from 2003 till date.
The senior citizens, who protested under the aegis of Nigeria Union Pensioners (NUP), lamented that they had lost some of their members due to hardship, calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to look into their predicament.
A statement issued by the state’s Chairman and Secretary , Comrades Edward Festus-Abibo and J. Agbo respectively, reiterated their position that the Amaechi administration had not been fair to them.
They threatened to boycott this month’s general elections, if government failed to address their needs, adding that the governorship candidates in the state should also address their issues.
They said: “We, the pensioners numbering about 11,000, felt very aggrieved by the actions of the Rivers State government headed by Governor Chibuike Amaechi over non-harmonisation of pensions from 2003 to date valued at over N3 billion; non-payment of monthly pension allowance for November to December 2014, and January, 2015.
Responding on behalf of Governor Rotimi Amaechi, Permanent Secretary, Government House, Fortune Oguru, assured them that their requests would be channelled to him.

Culled from the Sun

The 6 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Saving for Retirement-Katey Troutman

Source: Thinkstock

Retirement is one of those important milestones that proves perennially challenging for generation after generation of Americans, and, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. According to the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey, conducted by the Employee Benefits Institute, more than half of American workers have not calculated how much money they will need in retirement, meaning that millions may never achieve their retirement goals.

Indeed, studies have shown that retirement in America is becoming something of a luxury. More and more Americans report that they expect to work during their retirement, for instance, and the “majority of workers (55%) expect to retire after age 65, or do not plan to retire at all,” according to a Gallup poll released last April. Further, the same study found that the average retirement age in the U.S. has risen to 62, the highest average Gallup has ever found since it first started collecting data on retirement age in 1991.
The Gallup study also found that “the average working household has virtually no retirement savings,” and cites stagnating wages as a key culprit. “The hope of retirement security is out of reach for many Americans in the face of crumbling retirement infrastructure,” the study notes, adding that the average American family has a median retirement balance of $3,000.
The Gallup poll found that retirement savings are closely linked to income and wealth. Unsurprisingly, wealthier Americans are much more likely to own a retirement account, while lower-income families are much more likely to have little or no savings. According to the study, more than 38 million working-age households (45%) do not own any retirement account assets.
Regardless of your stage in life, it’s clear that retirement is an issue Americans need to take more seriously. Whether you are a Millennial hoping to educate yourself about how best to start prepping for retirement, or a Gen Xer or even Baby Boomer looking to see how you can improve your prospects, we’ve outlined some of the biggest mistakes people make when saving for retirement, and how you might be able to rectify them.

1. Waiting too long to start

Waiting into your late twenties or mid-thirties to begin saving for retirement might seem like an all-to-obvious no-no. But there are a number of different reasons why people procrastinate saving. For Millennials, an underemployed generation veritably drowning in student loan debt, saving for retirement can often take a back seat to paying down loans. According to CNN, the number of Americans who have student loan debt in some form has risen to more than 40 million, and the average student loan debt in the U.S. is now around $29,000.
But even if you have mountains of student loan debt, experts note that it is imperative to start saving for retirement as early as you can. FinancialMentor notes that the most important asset you have when saving for retirement is time. Simply put: The earlier you start saving, the easier it will be to achieve your goals for retirement. “Every six years you wait to get started doubles the required monthly savings necessary to reach the same level of retirement income.”
So what if you’ve yet to start saving? Experts say the main thing is to simply start now, save as much as you possibly can, and be smart about where you invest your money. You might also consider seeking the counsel of a financial planner to identify in writing some concrete goals to help get you on track. And whatever you do, don’t procrastinate any longer. “When you keep putting it off, it’s all too easy to get to retirement and find out you don’t have nearly enough saved,” notes Katie Brewer, a certified financial planner with LearnVest.com.
Brewer adds that “even if you can only contribute 1% for now — that won’t get you retirement, but it will get you closer than you are today.”

2. Lack of diversity

Retirement is often called a person’s “golden years,” and rightfully so. A well-planned retirement should give you both the freedom and the money you need to pursue your passions and spend some well-earned time with friends and family. But in order to ensure that your “golden years,” are just that, it’s important to diversify your savings; that is, don’t rely solely on a 401(k), and certainly don’t rely on Social Security.

A proper retirement savings plan will require a number of different vehicles for your savings. For most workers, a 401(k) will only allow you to save about $17,500 a year, and a traditional or Roth IRA account will only allow you to contribute an additional $5,500. To truly make the most of your retirement, investing some of your savings is a smart idea.

For many Millennials, though, the idea of investing can be overwhelming; recent research suggests that one of Gen Y’s biggest financial flaws is that they are an immensely risk-averse generation. Having come of age in the middle of the Great Recession, it makes sense that Millennials would favor tried-and-true, low-risk savings options, but the reality is that Millennials should invest in a high-growth option now, while they still have plenty of time to ride out the bumps, experts say.

The U.S. Department of Labor adds that diversity is important when it comes to retirement savings because it can actually help to reduce risk and improve return. The DOL notes that it’s also important that you assess your investment mix at different stages in your life; when you are young, a higher-risk investment strategy may be more effective, whereas the closer you are to retirement, the more important a low-risk portfolio may prove.

If you’re unsure of where to start with your retirement investments, it’s best to consult a financial planner who can help map out a strategy that you feel comfortable with, given your personal retirement goals.

3. Not consulting a financial planner

Saving for retirement can be a complicated endeavor, and the rules and regulations are always changing. With something as important and expensive as retirement, it’s a good idea to seek the counsel of someone whose job it is to help you get on track, or to keep you on track, if you’re already in a good position.

Financial planners might seem like an unnecessary expense to some, particularly if you’re on a tight budget, but oftentimes a planner can help you “find” money or investment opportunities you didn’t even know were available to you; as a result, oftentimes consultations are worth every penny, despite the upfront expense.  Loren Dunton, who is often considered one of the founders of the financial planning movement, says he believes “most people need a planner,” adding that, “the ones who don’t need one are usually smart enough to use one.”

“If you find yourself letting important financial decisions go because you just don’t seem to get around to them, you might want to talk to a financial planner to get those jobs done,” says Gerri Detweiler, a radio host and author of “Slash Your Debt,” who spoke with Bankrate.com.
Often times the biggest struggle for those beginning to build their retirement accounts is not having a clear goal or strategy, according to LearnVest.com. Financial planners can help you decide how much money you need to save in order to enjoy your retirement, so you can stop worrying about whether you’ll have enough.

4. Not taking full advantage of employer-matching

If your employer offers an employer-sponsored 401(k), sign up and make sure you actively participate. 401(k)s are absolutely the easiest way to begin saving for retirement. The U.S. Department of Labor website notes that automatic deductions make employer-sponsored 401(k)s dead simple, and your taxes will be lower than if you use another vehicle for your retirement savings.
Further, many employers offer benefits “matching,” which means that an employer will match a certain percentage of the amount you contribute to your employer-sponsored retirement plan. If your employer offers such a program and you’re not already taking advantage of it, you are, in essence, throwing away free money.
Bargaineering.com makes an important point, noting that oftentimes employers are able to offer employer matching programs because they have already accounted for that money by deducting it from your salary. For instance, “if your employer said they’d match your contributions up to 3%, they were probably offering you a salary that was 3% lower than what they would be offering you if there were no 401(k) available to you.” As a result, by not taking advantage of matching programs, you are essentially voluntarily taking a pay cut.

5. Not increasing the amount you save in tandem with your increasing income

A common mistake many people make who are just beginning to start saving for retirement is believing that by simply enrolling in an employer-sponsored 401(k), they are saving enough. But the truth is that automatic enrollment usually means that you’re only contributing about 3% of your income. That percentage should really be more like 10 or 15 if you are a young worker, or potentially even higher if you really want to get ahead of the game.
Want to know where you stand? Retirement calculators are an incredibly useful tool to make sure you’re well on your way to the kind of retirement you envision. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, fewer than half of all Americans have calculated how much they need to save for retirement; don’t be one of the more than 50% who haven’t taken a look at the numbers.
If you’d like to earn a significant portion of your current income during retirement, it’s important that you increase the amount you save according to the amount you make. That means when you get a raise, you should also be increasing your contributions to your retirement account. Further, the older you get, the more vigilant you need to be about the amount you’re saving. Since your income is likely to be at its highest in the years just before you retire, it’s important that you make the most of that extra income by saving a little extra if possible.
Brewer says that if you have trouble remembering to increase your contributions, try setting up a monthly, biannual, or annual calendar reminder to notify you when you need to be upping your contributions by another percentage point or two. “You don’t want to realize five years before you plan to retire that you’re behind on your goal…putting away 10% now will be a lot less painful than putting away 50% later.”

6. Sacrificing retirement savings for your kid’s college fund

It is absolutely admirable to want to start saving for your kids’ college education as early as possible, but don’t let a college savings fund impede on your own retirement. In fact, don’t touch your retirement savings for anything if you can help it.
It’s certainly tempting to sacrifice a check that otherwise would have gone toward retirement savings, but resist the urge to do so. One of the biggest mistakes people make when saving for retirement is abusing their retirement accounts; you really shouldn’t touch your 401(k), and neither should you stop contributing or defer increasing your contributions because you want to send your kids to an Ivy League, or private liberal arts college.
“The most important thing you can do for your kids is make sure you’re self-sufficient, so you won’t have to rely on them in your eighties for financial support,” says Judy McNary, a financial planner based in Colorado who spoke with LearnVest. “It pains me when I see parents, whose intentions are awesome, not maximize their retirement opportunities because they want their children to be successful,” she adds. McNary notes that she encourages her clients to look for schools that fit within the family’s existing budget when looking at colleges. And, if it makes you feel any better, recent studies have suggested that prestigious colleges don’t actually do much to increase a graduate’s chance of securing a job, meaning that while Junior might prefer the swanky (and expensive) college thousands of miles away, he’ll do just fine with a degree from a state school

According to a 1999 study conducted by two economists, what does matter is your academic performance and the tangible skills you are able to show employers. It turns out that while going to college is important, where you go isn’t.

Culled from  Personal Finance Cheat Sheet:

THE RISE IN PENSION ASSETS AND THE NEED FOR HOUSING DEVEOPMENT-Odunze Reginald C

In advance economy, pension assets have been effectively used for infrastructural development like good road network, housing etc

The need for housing cannot be over emphasized

In January  2015, the National Pension Commission, PenCom, announced that the pension assets has hit 4.6 Trillion Naira, and also stated that the operators in the scheme has 20 PFAs, 4PFCs, 7CPFAs, 19AES,and more  recently the Police Pension Fund.

The astronomical increase in pension assets at the point of writing this article may far be in excess of 4.7 Trillion, may have been necessitated by the strict oversight functions of PenCom, the body vested by the provisions of the Pension Reform Act as being responsible for the supervision and control of the Pension Fund Administrators, Pension Fund Custodians and other relevant players in the scheme.

The recent amendment of the 2004 Pension Reform Act, which resulted in its repeal and the subsequent provisions of the Pension Reform Act 2014 will positively consolidate more on the pension assets as the relevant portions of the law has increased the coverage to states, local governments, and employers with minimum of three employees.

What these portends is that of sustainability , a market deepening and expansion which will definitely results in Larger pension assets. But market deepening and expansion has its problems which includes handling the issue of customer service delivery and incidence of high technological cost.

Technology is a paramount necessity in all spheres of business life and pension cannot be an exception, linked to technology is the issue of customer service delivery as the market deepening will come with it, a larger customer base waiting to be serviced on a regular bases.

But far from these, the increase in Pension Assets will definitely results in large investible funds for the real sector and infrastructure, but the idea of investing in real sector and infrastructure comes with it a myriad of problems like corruption, inflation of contracts, kick back just to mention a few, what then do we do as corruption or fraudulent practices may results in the retiree not able to access his funds at the point of retirement.