Baby boomers apparently are thinking about retiring to exotic locations. I saw an article about this in one of our trade publications in which an investment advisor was quoted as saying that retiring to Cancun was no different than retiring to Arizona. Well, not exactly. Hurricane Dean aside, what about cultural, political, and legal differences as well as access to medical care to which retirees have been accustomed.
While not many retirees will make the leap to Cancun, many retirees will be moving to Tibet. Tibet? Yes, Tibet. That’s the analogy that David Macchia uses to convey the challenge that most retirees will face: converting their accumulation of retirement assets into distributed retirement income. David is CEO of Wealth2k, a firm that is using communication technology to deal with the transition from the accumulation phase to the distribution phase.
Going from such concepts as asset allocation, dollar cost averaging, and the cost of waiting to new concepts as such dealing with the cost of medical care and not outliving one’s assets is – says David – like moving from middle class America to Tibet. And for those of us that are in the retirement plan industry, we’ll need to become tour guides.
If you’re interested in the shape of things to come, here is a link to David’s movie that will give you a glimpse of retiring to Tibet.
