I'd agree with all Kragwy said.
Another round to look at is the 260. It can handle bullets just a bit heavier than the 243 all the way up to 155 and 160.
It is wonderful for deer with a 125 grain Nosler.
The only glitch I see in the whole post is the idea of retirement.
In today's economy, if something radically different doesn't take place soon I doubt any of us are going to retire in the way we always thought we would.
I have several friends in California, Nevada Arizona and Illinois that were "retired" and their policies fell apart. They were all told they had to accept less or go to court and get judgments and even if they got the judgments in their favor, the money simply doesn't exist anymore. The pensions they were depending on were all being overseen by banks and companies that "invested" their money for the last 40 years, and those investments were all bad. 3 of these friends have "state retirements" and one is through a county in Nevada. But that still was no guarantee that the money would not be lost, and it was.
With that said, any rifle and round you settle on should be set up with brass, bullets, powder and primers as soon as you can, because there is a possibility that these things will not be available in the future at any reasonable price. Even if the economy gets stronger I believe it is a certainty that the cost of components are not going to drop much, if at all! So I'd advise you to look at ammo even more than you look at guns. Not much ever goes down in price.
The rifle is a one-time investment, but ammo is used for the rest of your life.
The cool thing about the 243, 260 and 7-08 is that they can all be formed easily from Mil-Surp 7.62 machine gun brass. This kind of brass is cheap and easy to get (today)
When I was a kid the same thing was true with the 25-06 and 270. Most of the life of the 1st barrel in my 270 was used up using necked down military 30-06 brass, which was free in those days. Almost every range in Nevada and Idaho had 30-06 brass laying all over the ground.
You'll have to take out the primer crimps and trim it, but I have found the military brass to be quite good.