ashington May 8, 2013 Dow 15,000 and the retirement crisis ahead By Matt Miller The Dow's cracked 15,000 and the S&P is at record highs, so it's time to pop open the champagne and celebrate, right? Well, absolutely, if you've got a bunch of money in the stock market. Which means first you'd have to be an American with savings. Which means you're a rare American, indeed. "Dow 15,000" is the perfect time to take stock of an unappreciated part of our national predicament. Yes, we face a jobs crisis, a schools crisis, an immigration crisis, an infrastructure crisis, an inequality crisis and a college affordability crisis (just to name some current favorites). But the sleeper crisis, the Next Big Shoe To Drop, is the retirement crisis. By definition, a retirement crisis begins with a savings crisis. Consider: According to research summarized recently by the New America Foundation, "nearly half of Americans (43.6%) do not have enough savings to cover basic expenses if they were to lose their source of stable income. These 132.1 million `liquid asset poor' Americans include many members of the middle class and upper middle class: more than a quarter of households earning between $55,465 and $90,000 per year — the entire range of which is above the median household income of $50,054 — have less than three months of liquid savings. Over 30% of all households do not have a savings account at all." Let's emblazon these facts on our collective psyche. Millions of families who earn more than the median income have less than three months of savings put aside. Millions of people with less money are living paycheck to paycheck. Families who at least owned their own houses have had their net worth eviscerated by the housing meltdown, which blew out the backstop on which countless Americans depend. A 2011 study found that half of American families couldn't put their hands on $2000 within 30 days if an emergency struck. As the authors wrote, that $2000 amoun