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December 19, 2008
By John Rosevear
The Motley Fool

"How am I going to retire now?"

That question has been on lots of people's lips since, oh, the first week of October or thereabouts. An awful lot of paper wealth has evaporated since then, even for those who weren't in Mr. Madoff's Magical Money-Munching Machine. Madoff's scheme has captured the big headlines lately, but even investors who thought they were doing everything right have seen holdings in recently well-regarded stocks like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), General Electric (NYSE: GE), and American Express (NYSE: AXP) dwindle to disturbing degrees.

What about your 401(k)? The mutual fund industry and its vaunted active management didn't escape the market meltdown, either. Morningstar (Nasdaq: MORN) -- another well-regarded stock that got clobbered -- noted last month that every domestic and international equity fund available in the U.S. had lost money over the last year. Every one. That's more than 11,000 funds!

It's probably small comfort, but if you're nearing retirement age and worried about your nest egg, you're clearly far from alone. But will you all have to work until you're 90?

Read entire article: http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/retirement/2008/12/19/how-to-get-your-retirement-back.aspx