Thanks for the tip and the feedback, @chrisrice!
You're right on both counts -- that section is a bit confusing and my posts would benefit from some photographic colour!

I'm afraid I let my passion for topic overwhelm me at the end.
I think I'll take a page from your book, edit and repost.

What I was trying to say is that many of the people that are retiring right now purchased mutual funds that were heavily slanted towards stocks that appreciate in value, but don't produce income.
This makes sense as the quick increase in value made people feel like they were winning.

What's happening, though, is that approximately 1,000 people/day here in Canada are retiring.
They're looking into their mutual fund statements and not finding the millions of dollars they expected.
While their portfolios have grown, that growth has all been the simple interest of value appreciation, rather than the compound interest that income and reinvestment provides.

Some of these people are truly devastated to find that their retirement is going to be as hard as the rest of their life.
Most times their advisors didn't understand the simple difference between simple and compound interest, so couldn't have given them better advice.

On a personal note, I recently had to explain this difference to my father, who has training as an accountant.
He just couldn't figure out why his money hadn't grown the way he thought it should.
The look on his face when he realized the simple mistake that cost him massive amounts of money was really heartbreaking.