retirement storm clouds

The tale centers around the fate of a commercial fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, and the heroic battle its captain (played by George Clooney in the movie) and five-man crew waged to stay afloat. It was a battle they lost.

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I believe a similar confluence of factors may be conspiring to capsize the retirement plans of millions of Americans.

No, I'm not talking about the threat of job layoffs or turmoil in the stock and bond markets. I see these threats more as short-term squalls that you can weather. I'm talking about flaws that get to the very heart of our retirement planning.

Of course, like anyone who writes about retirement issues, I've long known that most of us aren't paragons of rigor when it comes to laying the groundwork for a comfortable retirement -- which is a charitable way of saying we often wing it.

But while going over the results of a recent nationwide survey of pre-retirees by the MetLife Mature Market Institute, I ...