Using outside money for the taxes keeps the balance in the sheltered account high, and it also consumes assets that would themselves get damaged over the next 25 years by income and estate taxes.
Finally, Japan's population is aging fast, faster than any other G-7 country, and these old folks dissave as they consume their assets to live in retirement.
Even comfortably well-off Americans know that years of in-home care, a critical illness or extended institutional care for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease can consume their assets, leaving little, if any money, for their spouses, heirs, philanthropic efforts or even their own living expenses.
Given the importance of fees, it is heartening that the Securities and Exchange Commission now requires mutual funds to prominently report expense ratios, the percent of assets consumed each year by operating costs.
However, the content of these documents may be poorly or partly consumed by the asset users thus creating a gap between the original documentation instructions and the actual asset usage.
The annual expense column measures how much of your assets are consumed each year in management fees and overhead.
There was economic pressure because the country consumed enormous amounts of assets in a binge of consumption in the first year and a half of Allende's regime.
Arden said: Either of these two organisations would find the LSE to be a strategic asset easily consumed – and at an opportunistic price.
For retirees trading from home, the odds are far worse; computers, commissions, taxes, accounting and other necessities can easily consume 2% of assets annually (even before putting a value on the retiree's time).
But unlike other assets that are consumed over time, the more it is used, the more valuable it becomes.
