Then there is the science of retirement. As late as the 1990s, there was no science-based institution designed to increase longevity. Today, these institutes and think tanks are proliferating.
Two weeks ago, scientists in Israel reported they could print 3-D hearts with a patient's own cells. It's significant because hearts manufactured from the patient's own cells should not be rejected.
"All of the wild blue yonder stuff you are hearing about longevity is probably closer to the truth than you think," Murray said.
But since human nature is "a failed investor," it's the responsibility of advisors to lead clients out of their dangerous misconceptions. The biggest single mistake people make when they enter retirement, in Murray's view, is moving most of their assets to bonds.
Sadly, this fate awaits a major chunk of the few Americans who manage to save enough for retirement. "You freeze your principal not seeing that you are freezing your income," he observed. "A fixed-income strategy in retirement is suicide—suicide on the installment plan."
The longer people live, the further their income is likely to fall behind the cost of living. Trendline inflation over the last 30 years as measured by the Consumer Price Index is 2.9 percent. So $1 worth of goods in 1989 now costs $2.40.
"The primary goal of retirement investing isn't growth or income," he noted. It's maintaining purchasing power to sustain a dignified lifestyle.
This brought him to the subject of target-date funds, which he described as a Dr. Kevorkian-style solution to retirement investing. At the end of 2018, there were $2.5 trillion in retirement assets sitting in target-date funds.
That number is expected to increase to $4 trillion by the end of 2020. Murray said these bond-heavy funds would soon approach 50 percent of the nation's retirement assets."If you can't make a business out of that, I don't know what you can make a business out of."
What is the magic elixir or serum to rescue millions of older Americans from a slow but inexorable decline in their living standards guaranteed by target-date funds? The rapidly rising dividends of U.S. and other global multi-national corporations.