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No matter where we are on the road to retirement, we have three tools at our disposal: contributions, time and investment returns. The question is, what can we do to improve our retirement equation?

Each and every day of the year I review hundreds of financial articles looking for the very few that are succinct, informative, thought-provoking and well written and bring them to my readers in a Market Intelligence Report. Below are today's best:

Inflation lurks in the shadows. It destroys value by gradually eroding real returns over time. It is financial death by a thousand cuts. Investors too often look at "the numbers" in their portfolio without asking what those numbers can actually buy over time. It's a classic mistake that John Maynard Keynes termed "money illusion."

There's a good chance U.S. growth will pick up from 2016 [because, as I see it,] two key shifts are helping to propel growth higher, albeit within the context of broad structural trends keeping growth rates lower than in prior economic cycles.

Another boom and another crash. The story of Bitcoin has been a roller coaster ride of rises and falls to say the least. People have watched in awe as Bitcoin has catapulted higher in recent weeks yet this was not meant to last. Once again, as it has so many times before, Bitcoin has suffered a serious setback, falling roughly 31% overnight!

Don’t be afraid of inflation. It is already here and there is nothing we can do about it. The effects will soon be obvious to all. Just make sure you are among those who are protected and prepared to profit.

Higher interest rates will lead to higher deficits and still higher borrowings. As such, we will have the perfect vicious circle that leads to the whole caboodle collapsing.

You only have a short window to short some of these banks' stocks because, on December 4, Italy is voting on a crucial referendum. It’s almost certain to fail - and that will probably be the pin that pricks this super bubble.

When holding their stock picks for the year, banks were only 43% accurate with their predictions. That’s right! Flipping a coin would have been potentially more effective than buying bank stock picks, which ended up down -4.79% on the year. The S&P 500 finished down only -0.69%. Simply just making any interest in a savings account would have been more effective as well. [This article ranks] the banks, from best to worst, based on accuracy of their calls and also based on the performance of their recommendations.

This article presents 9 proposals that I think might actually solve the deficit and debt problems of the U.S., jumpstart its economy, pay for healthcare and other costs, and do so with the least damage to the body politic and economy. I offer these proposals, though, knowing that there will probably not be one person who doesn’t find some of them extremely distasteful - and that includes me. The simple reality, however, is that this is where we find ourselves today: we are left with distasteful choices.