June 4, 2008 12:33PM

The Retirement Crunch

By Alexis Glick

Yesterday on The Opening Bell (9-10a.m. EST) I interviewed a man whose story was very touching.  His name is Tom Terrill, and he is the oldest lung transplant patient in the U.S. at age 73.

I read about him in a piece in the Wall Street Journal called “Tapped Out” on Monday. The premise of the article was how more and more retirees or people nearing retirement are tapping into their nest egg’s or retirement funds because they either didn’t anticipate the various costs of retirement like health care or food and gasoline or because they’re simply tapped out due to the weaker economy. Tom opted to use a REX Agreement to get short-term funds out of his home so that he could use them for his day-to-day retirement needs. It’s a funding arrangement that I have never heard of but becoming more common in this economy.

Paul Burkemper, the president of Burkemper Group and an investment adviser explained why he’s concerned about the dramatic increase in withdrawals from consumers retirement funds and why they, everyone of us, needs to invest more in our retirement.