Toughest Job: Getting Boomers to Defer Gratification

Advisors have the toughest job in America, because they’re not selling you; what they’re trying to do is get you to defer your spending, and that’s a pretty remarkable thing,” says Mark Casady, president of LPL Financial. “A company that goes bankrupt to get rid of its pension liabilities–that’s a message that sends a chill through many a 50-year-old,” says Casady. It makes an investor “stop and think, ‘Gosh why am I putting on that new addition? [I'd better] think about putting that money away; I can live with smaller space for the next 10 years, that’s okay.’”