Ben Stein on retirement planning

The Malibu-based writer/actor/economist is also honorary chairman of National Retirement Planning Week and he says that the U.S. has a real crisis on its hands, with 40 percent of pre-retiree baby boomers having little or no savings. "There's nothing funny about retiring without enough money," he tells Dan Primack, editor of PE Week Wire. "There's nothing funny about being old and poor, and our goal is to keep as many people happy and comfortable in retirement as possible and that means save, save, save."

Retirement Planning Week brings together a bunch of organizations that will stress of importance of planning ahead. TV, radio and print will provide information and resources. This is a topic that gets addressed every so often - usually when somebody releases a study - but after a few head shakes, it's back to the malls. Retirement planning is a tough sell for spending-crazed Americans. That's why we have a savings rate across all households of negative 1 percent. For folks extracting equity from their homes, the rate was a negative 15 percent (numbers courtesy of Economy.com). Here's Stein:

People are going to be in very severe privation. It's easy to figure out that if the ordinary family income in this country is above $40,000 a year and the average social security payment is below $20,000 a year, and people have no savings, that gap will be made up mostly in suffering.