Have you read the October 9, 2009 Times Magazine article entitled "Why It's Time to Retire the 401(k)"? If not and you are not on the path to a comfortable retirement, you are probably someone who should.

The article makes a number of vital observations about the 401(k) and the outlook for the average American's retirement that is depending on the performance of these accounts. In sum, the main points include:

1. The 401(k) was not originally intended to be the "de facto" retirement account. It became that only because companies saw it as a way to save themselves money.

2. The 401(k) is "a lousy idea, a financial flop, a rotten repository for our retirement reserves."

3. Most people would have been better off with a traditional company pension, but these are close to non-existent today. Few companies continue to offer them.

4. The average 401(k) has a balance of $45,519. That's not retirement.

5. 44% of all Americans are in danger of going broke in their post-work years, per the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

6. What is needed to solve this problem is a guaranteed, private plan similar to the traditional pension plan that guarantees you won't outlive your money, i.e., a personal "pension" plan.

Most people know their 401(k) is not performing that well, yet they often choose to ignore it because they don't know what to do about it. Their choices are often limited. But they continue to pump money into it and thereby "prop" it up, further masking the real ROI, when in fact there are real alternatives that most financial "advisors" will not educate them about because it doesn't fit into their mechanism for making money.

Not well known to many is that there is a way to participate in the upside of the markets while avoiding the nasty downside, keeping your principal and your gains fully safe and intact. When one takes a longer term view of investments, which is what retirement is all about, and forgoes the idea of get-rich-quick "investing", they can implement a plan that will yield guaranteed results.

For example, a person age 45 can guarantee themselves over $25,500 every year for the rest of their life starting at age 65 for every $100,000 invested now. This can be established so that the retirement income is tax free, and with the high probability that tax rates will be significantly higher in the future than they are now, that's a great position to be in.

Interested in knowing how you can set up a tax free personal, guaranteed "pension" plan so that you will not be one who of those that outlives your money? Contact me at (303) 346-2285 for a free, no obligation confidential personal financial analysis or for information on attending one of my free financial education seminars.

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