William Bengen sparks off a body of work on retirement income planning when he tries to answer three challenging questions altogether: How much do I need to accumulate for my retirement? How much can I safely spend in retirement so that I do not run out of money? What would be the ideal asset allocation? All three questions are intertwined in that, you cannot answer one without addressing the others. Whether we like Bengen’s Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR for short) or not, we got to know what it is about and what it is not. What I find very frustrating is people talking as if they know how it works but actually, they don’t really understand how it works: The 4% Rule does not adjust for inflation! The 4% Rule does not account for tough economic times! The 4% Rule spends 4% of the prevailing portfolio! What...