It is absolutely stunning. You cannot read numbers that communicate what the reality is. That's part of what I'm trying to get across and that's partly why I use video.

The most common mistakes were investing in money market funds by people who were so scared at the prospect of managing their own funds that they picked the most conservative option, and their investments did not keep up with inflation. The second major mistake was being too heavily invested in their own company's stock, and buying when it was high and there was a lot of optimism about the company, and then having to sell it low when the company got in trouble.

It's probably also smart to keep some money in cash to invest it. But I would resist at all costs taking a lump-sum distribution because the tendency is to spend out too fast in the early years of your retirement. The advice of professionals is to take out no more than 5% per year and that will give you 20 years of distributions, and at your age, 55, you probably have more than 20 years life expectancy.

Social Security is the foundation stone of that kind of retirement security. It not only needs to be strengthened in order to make sure it's there for younger baby boomers and Generations X and Y, but it probably needs to be strengthened and expanded because the retirement benefits now being offered by most employers are not sufficient to support middle-income Americans in their long years of retirement.

Journalists cover words and delude themselves into thinking they have committed journalism.

The issue of the pension gap has got to become visible and important to millions of people before Washington will respond seriously. Right now, everyone thinks it's his or her own problem and that individuals have to do better and save more. Of course, that is true. We all have to save more and take responsibility for our own retirement. But we have a huge social and economic problem on our hands.

In Western Europe, most countries have variations of the lifetime pension system for most workers so they are keeping the system that we are walking away from. By comparison, 50% of the American workforce is not offered any retirement plan by their employers. And of those who are offered a plan, roughly 25% do not choose to join. In other words, everything is voluntary, and that's one of the reasons our results are so perilous for most people.