Income can refer to cash flow derived from a variety of sources, including personal earnings, investment earnings, businesses or even real estate. These forms of income are generally referred to as earned income. There are also sources of unearned income, particularly when discussing investments. Dividends, capital gains and interest are common examples of unearned income.
There is a case to be made for home equity as the most important source of retirement funding in the United States, and this would seem to make the...
Putnam Investments President and CEO Robert Reynolds spoke on the need to address America’s lifetime income challenge at the recent Retirement Income Industry Association (RIIA) conference in Chicago.
While Reynolds has spent most of his career in leadership positions in the investment management industry, his comments and recent initiatives at Putnam focus on what Reynolds believes should be a golden age for innovation in the area of guaranteed income solutions.
Reynolds praised the progress that has helped create a more solid foundation for workplace savings in America. In particular, Reynolds applauds the positive effects of the...
MIT Professor Robert Merton addresses the challenge of financing retirement income in a lecture delivered this past January.
Merton briefly discusses the financial crisis and suggests that it is unproductive to think about digressing to a financial world that preceded Glass-Steagall and financial innovation. Merton’s view is that financial engineering is indispensable in addressing the large and complex issues of pension and retirement finance.
Merton’s basic prescription for improving the general state of retirement finance includes increasing savings, working longer, taking more risk. Most would agree with the first two choices but the third—taking more risk—seems...
