"On Friday the large-cap index closed at 1,402.43, up 11.5 percent for the year." That's because the Federal Reserve has been PRINTING money to push up stock market values. (See "Bernanke Seeks Gains for Stocks in Push for Jobs: Economy", Bloomberg, Oct. 2, 2012.) Corporate earnings reports from 3M to Google have been disappointing since October. Apple Computer's stock has lost almost $200 per share since its high in September. The reason for that is because economic conditions and corporate profits are not sufficient to sustain such lofty stock market values. Without the Fed printing money in a deliberate effort to inflate the market stock values would be lower and these guys would have been--and should have been--wrong. "Investment experts" rarely do interviews. They are busy crunching numbers. The people who do the interviews are sales people. And when you are trying to drum up business, you want to make things sound as good as possible because investing and the fees it generates dries up during a down market.

The rest of the story.... there is a strong hint in the story, about the baby boom generation reaching the age of medicare and social security and that is the problem. Funny, it was not a problem when I was contributing to all this with my two jobs most of my life. I never realized I was part of the problem. How could I have been so foolish.

Want a concrete solution to the fiscal cliff income problem? How about enacting a bounty hunter law, and give those bounty hunters a 10% finder's fee for the money recovered from all the fraud in medicare, social security, welfare, and unemployment. And just for laughs, how about we add military spending to the list as well. Maybe we can figure out something for the banking industry too? Oh wait, someone would not consider that fraud; they would call it "regulation" and bad mouth it. And for good measure, let's add illegal insider trading to the list and triple the amount if they catch a member of congress. Call me when you get this done; or don't bother to tell me any more about our fiscal problems in America.

One sector that has been performing very well over the last several years is biotechnology stocks.

Must be a very important article; three/four people have taken the time to comment on this group. I read this statement with fascination; "Apple Computer's stock has lost almost $200 per share since its high in September." The reason given was the pay out to investors; ironic, I was kind of hoping it was American citizens ticked off that most of their products are made in China.

I don't know if your "experts" are well qualified or not. I'd rather have heard Arne Carlson's opinion. He single handedly reformed the state Board of Investment. He may not have a PhD in Economics, but he had more commonsense investment sense than the academics in charge of the states portfolio. Citizens of MN may not pay too close attention, but MN has about 82 billion dollars invested, great for a state our size, much better than others, thanks to Arne's efforts thirty years ago?

Comment229, the problem with Medicare is that those contributions we have all been making for so many years are not enough to cover even half the cost of Medicare benefits. Social security is less of a problem. For a very good analysis read Eugene Steuerle's analysis of "Social Security and Medicare Taxes..." at the left leaning Urban Institute website. I'm part of the baby boom and I think it is shameful what we are doing to the next generation. We should look in the mirror and take responsibility for our mistake.