I debated whether it was in my interest to post such a morbid topic so early in my blogging career, but decided it’s an important consideration people should think about.

Life is dynamic, and retirement is no different. When people first determine how much they need to retire, they have to make some baseline assumption of how long they plan on living. Even if its not an exact age, they have to make some guess at a range.

This is silly because you don’t know for sure exactly how long you’re actually going to live.

With the potential advances in healthcare, it’s likely I’ll live into my 100s. How can I say this?

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I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m a bargain hunter. My grandparents drive into another state for better gas prices. Unfortunately I don’t have the leisure of spending hours searching for the absolute best deal out there.

My time, like everyone else, is limited. But one thing is for certain, I NEVER pay full price for ANYTHING….well, most of the time anyway.

ONLY SUCKERS PAY FULL PRICE.

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At first, I thought this was a relatively good idea. It seemed simple enough to understand. Americans don’t like to save, but more importantly don’t like work. So set up a program to promote the former by capitalizing on the latter.

Huzzah! Americans’ retirements saved!

After thinking about it some more, I’m having reservations. Here’s a few things I see wrong with these type of programs.

Sure, it would be great to have that money set aside when I’m older, but would a forced savings plan create better savers now? I don’t think so. If anything, it could drive youth away from saving. If you knew the government was automatically setting aside your retirement, where’s the incentive to do more?

Programs of this nature do not empower people, they coddle them into dependence. It seems policies, even those well-intentioned, revert to the idea that we are simply too dim to decide for ourselves. There’s always spectacular fanfare behind the programs the government churns out, yet they consistently fail to address the deeper issues.

Specific to the case, it’s not about capitalizing on our laziness, but transitioning our LIFESTYLES from spenders to savers.

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Hope everyone appreciates the alliteration – coming up with clever titles is probably the funnest part about writing posts!

Tomorrow marks an exciting day for the average investor…. or does it?

Warren Buffett has long been referred to as the “Oracle from Omaha” and Berkshire Hathaway has been the “golden egg” investment (BRK-A), being one of the most prestigious, and expensive, stocks traded on the NYSE.

It’s funny to think how much you’d have if you only owned 10 of the Class A shares. Closing at $104,200 – that’s NO small sum. Part of why the shares never paid a dividend or split was that Buffett believed in retaining the true value of the stock (see bullet #10).

The “lesser” shares (BRK-B), closing today at $3,476, were originally offered in 1996 to create a more affordable option, and also a way to pass shares to heirs – now THAT’S a cool phrase.

Even though that’s a stark difference, plenty of average investors were still priced out of this investment. Well, not anymore….

Tomorrow morning the B-class shares are splitting 50:1 and should be opening around $69.50/share. What do the readers think? Is this a “best buy” or “bogus bet”. Here’s what I’ve seen as the pros and cons.

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