EDITOR’S NOTE: Early this summer, Paul Merriman interviewed Knight Kiplinger, a highly respected financial journalist, for a Sound Investing podcast. This article contains excerpts from their discussion of the economy, inflation, interest rates, target-date retirement funds, investor psychology and prospects for dealing with government debt.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, join Paul this weekend on PBS (KQED) and hear him speak about his book Live It Up Without Outliving Your Money.

Question:

I am retired and have my IRA invested with a conservative 40% equity allocation in the Vanguard equity funds you recommend. For the fixed-income part of my portfolio, I'm using the four funds you suggest for monthly income. This is because I plan to take out the income next year, and I want to build up that part of my portfolio with higher-yielding funds. Am I making a mistake doing this?

Click here to read Merriman's answer!