Mark J. Warshawsky is Director of Retirement Research at Towers Watson.

Dr. Warshawsky served as assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department from 2004-2006 and he has held senior level economic research positions at the Federal Reserve Board, the Internal Revenue Service and TIAA-CREF.

In a recent and highly recommended Bloomberg op-ed, Carmen Reinhart discusses the options available to governments and central banks when attempting to deal with the burden of enormous amounts of public and private debt.

Reinhart suggests that the preferred policy option for many governments--including the United States--is a form of stealth taxation that amounts to financial repression.

It seemed obvious several years ago that retirees would shoulder much of the burden of the financial crisis and its residual effects.

While events have generally played-out in line with this projection, the backlash from seniors has been surprisingly subdued.  The lack of pitchforks seems odd given the fact that the number of retirement age voters is increasing by 10,000 each day in the United States.

Warren Buffett’s most recent shareholder letter focuses on the merits of productive assets such as equities in light of the current low interest rate environment and the potential for future inflation.

Buffett’s view is that although productive assets are variable and volatile, they are more likely to preserve future purchasing power than the fixed or currency-based alternatives.

As the manager of the largest bond fund in the world and a founder of PIMCO, Bill Gross is a leading authority on all things related to yield.

Since retirement finances are fundamentally about generating income from accumulated assets, retirees should care greatly about any comments and insights from Gross.  This is especially true since the world is starved for yield.

Gross regularly shares his insights through commentary on the PIMCO website.

Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco) founder and co-chief investment officer Bill Gross offered a revised view of the global investing landscape in a letter published on the company’s website. 

As the manager of the Pimco Total Return Fund, Gross’s 2011 investment decisions were driven in part by the “new normal” thesis. 

The new normal view suggests that investors should seek emerging market debt because developed countries will experience a prolonged period of sluggish growth, high unemployment and inflation. 

One way to evaluate a pension buyout involves determining what your future pension payments are worth today and then comparing that value to the buyout offer.

In other words, compare the lump sum pension buyout offer to what would you have to pay today to buy and annuity that locks-in a future stream of income that lasts for the rest of your life.

Metlife posted record variable annuity sales of $8.6 billion during the most recent quarter.  The VA sales record represents an 86 percent increase from the same period a year ago.

MetLife also announced that it will be lowering the returns offered on future variable annuity offerings in an effort to “re-price and improve the risk profile” of their product offerings.

Record low interest rates have made it difficult to sustain the richer product features contained in the current variable annuity offerings.

The following is a summary of stories related to the recent earnings warning from Canadian financial services company Sun Life.

Defined benefit pension plans are the traditional and increasingly rare type of pension plans offered through employers.

In contrast to defined contribution pension plans such as the 401(k), participants in defined benefit (“DB”) plans receive contractually guaranteed income and assume none of the risks (investment risk, interest rate risk, longevity risk, etc) associated with producing that lifetime income stream.

The problem is that defined benefit plans are scarce, and many of those that do still exist are in tough shape.