What do “the utilities of retirement” refer to? Buy gas and electric stocks and live off the dividends? No. Not in this article. We’re talking about utility as an economic term of art, meaning reward, pleasure, and satisfaction.

More than a generation ago, financial historian Peter Bernstein wrote about investors’ 'memory banks,' the market experience that accumulates in their hippocampi over their investing lives and molds their investment strategy. As he put it, looking back on the 1990s: 'Most of the new participants in the market had no memory of what a bear market was like.'

At the risk of assaulting an already deceased equine, happy talk about decreased spending in retirement strikes us as the whistling-past-the-graveyard rationalization of those who fear they haven’t saved enough. In plain English, the average retiree spends less than while working because they have to, not because they want to. Advisors and prospective retirees should take care not to confuse the two.

We love Roth accounts - really, we do. As long as we don't have to pay too high an entrance fee. Which would be dumb.

Don’t allow your middle-aged clients depending on their 401(k) plan to fool themselves. Markets can’t rescue a failure to save until it hurts. And don’t let them kid themselves that a smoother ride with bonds won’t come at the cost of increased shortfall risk.