Most Americans have no idea how much money they needlessly transfer away during their lifetime. What is certain is each dollar‘s loss, compounded by the additional income you could have earned by investing that dollar, makes them that much poorer as they work toward long-term financial goals.

We all want to accumulate more for retirement. We all need to save more, but, how do we accumulate enough? Reducing lifestyle, working harder or longer and increasing rates of return on saved money are all options. But, who wants to lower their lifestyle and you are already working as hard as you can. That only leaves increasing rates of return. Unfortunately, most asset and retirement strategists only focus on increasing rates of return without identifying or even considering the possibility of wealth being lost due to hidden wealth transfers, optimization. Increasing rates of return is important, but increasing rates of return always means increasing risk of loss.