ORLY

I drove my daughter in to school this morning. We don't really like doing that, but she was up pretty late last night, working on a school project, so we figured, what the heck. On the way, I listened to a bit of NPR doing an article about retirement savings, and how people are doing. I didn't learn much -- and for part of it, I thought that old saw -- but I did hear two interesting bits of trivia.

One was, when you're investing in a mix of stocks and bonds == stocks for returns, bonds for safety == keep the percentage of bonds roughly equivilent to your age. Huh, I thought. That sounds about right.
The other was, diversify your risk by investing across the board -- and, said the guy who founded Vanguard, our index funds, that allow you to own pieces of securities across the board, is great for that. Pieces? I thought. As in, slice n'dice, tranches, credit default swaps? THAT kind of thing?

Ah, investor advisors. If they knew, they'd be rich. Oh, wait. They are. With MY money.