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Specifically for you folks planning on doing it young, you really have to understand the data before making statements like you do above. I just looked at some of the S&P numbers. From 68-82, the S&P annualized at 4.6% with dividends reinvested. You after tax would have been considerably worse. Inflation was above this almost the entire time, and was double digits in some years. CPI annualized 7.6% during this peroid. It was a fking disaster. So was the early part of this decade. I am not being nitpicky on the numbers here. The DOW was down FORTY PERCENT REAL.
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http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/novtips.html
Remember, historically this is the worst case scenario.