[oh8eleven]

Can retirees safely withdraw 4% or 5% a year from investments?
There are just so many individual variables it doesn't make sense to ask this question as a generalization.
Spend what you have to spend, enjoy retirement within reason and if there's money left over, pretend you're a Kennedy and leave it to your family in such a way that Uncle Sam doesn't get a penny of it.

[expatpat]

What if there isn't money left?

Somerset Maugham wrote short story about two Englishmen in Tahiti who retired. One took his money in a lifetime pension, the other took his as a lump sum, declaring that if he ran out of money, he would shoot himself. He did run out of money, but did not commit suicide. He ended up begging from the natives -- you can imagine the shame for a Englishman of that era to do that....