Outside of the stock market

Outside of the stock market, returns are even worse. In fact,
the traditional safe harbor for millions of investors, the U.S. Treasury
securities market, may still be safe but it is not a particularly
profitable place to put one’s money or hopes for retirement.
The yields on Treasury securities were at their lowest in almost
half a century in 2003 and could be headed even lower in
the future. Even with a rise in interest rates that began in the summer
of 2004, the Treasury’s 10-year note was yielding only 4.71
percent at the end of 2006, which means that a Treasury portfolio
would take more than 15 years to double in size. That yield is
uncomfortably lower than the five-year average of 5.95 percent
through 2000, after which rates fell sharply. That average would
have doubled the size of a portfolio in 12 years.