Boomers Unprepared For Retirement

[dArKeR]

Few had as many lessons to teach about their golden years as Eileen Albert. At age 67, Albert is competing in her first triathlon.

"I'm ready to do this, I've practiced, I've trained, and I'm doing it. Rain or shine," she says.

CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan discovered that Albert will be swimming the breast stroke for 400 meters, bike riding for 20 kilometers and running for another 5 kilometers.

It is something most people in their 30s would be leery about completing. But for Eileen, training for the triathlon, was one of the luxuries of retirement.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/17/sunday/main578669.shtml

Working for $8.5 at Walmart is below the poverty line. How could you ever prepare even working fulltime for 30 years at Walmart?

The Bush Crime Family's vision of America. Spend our money on defense contractors who steal oil for the American Crime Families.

[Maple]

1. No one aged 67 is a

baby boomer

[FreakinDJ]

2. Social Security is not prepaired for boomers

We pay into this hidden tax account for the likes of bushit to withdrawl 40 Billion anytime he feels like it without ever having to repay it.

Has anyone ever thought of a social Security Payers bill of Rights

Where unsuspecting citizens will not be robbed of their hard earned cash. Lets call the kettle black, its a hidden tax at best

[rapier]

3. notes

SS is toast. Most pension funds and IRA's will be toast unless stocks can contiunue to rise in value far in excess of historic trend.

It is possible thay can as the full weight of the US Government and the quasi governmental Federal Reserve are willing to go to any length to see that stocks don't fall, including direct intervention in the markets. Yes, the stock market is now a socialized institution. This has broad political support. Stocks are the new best money and corporations are superceding government so certainly seen in that light stocks might make possible the confortable middle class retiernment envisioned by so many boomer during the next 2 decades.

They have to. The vast majority of our 'savings' are in stocks and corprate paper (bonds etc). Anyone with significant 'savings' in stocks will tend to support ANYTHING which will insure stock values. If that requriers the end of democracy and freedom as we know it, so be it. IF the retirement savings of boomers are lost in a stock market maliase lasting a long time then the entire foundation of our political economy and culture will shatter. So as I say, stocks have to keep rising, there is no alternative.

[Code_Name_D]

4. Better credit, through more credit.

I agree, they have to prop up stock prices. But how long can they keep it up? And dosn't doing so, in and of itself, require more capital?

The probllem is too much of this "savings" was in fact built upon the gains of the bubble economey. It is nothing more than speculitive returns that have been made into a some what harder form of curensey. But the money is no more real.

A common muyth of the market crash of the 1920 was that "millions of dollars vanished." But it vanished becase it was never realy there to begin with.

I fear much of our current economey is built on a patched up bubble.

[rapier]

5. notes

I'm not sure what 'capital' means anymore. The amount of dollars has doubled since 95, and those dollars have gone mostly into inflating financial assets. ( Just imagine, the amount of dollars created since 1779 to 1995 was equaled in only 8 years) As long as the out of control credit system can continue to expand, which is the mechanism of money supply growth, then yes, they can keep it up.

In the very short run the money supply has stopped growing. This is a serious problem for the financial markets. If stocks falter watch for the Fed to go even more nuts by monetizing like crazy. Job losses to them are regrettable but falling financial markets are a disaster equal to death.

[spooky3]

6. My parents retired in their early 60s

they were frugal all their lives, and they still have to pinch pennies. Prescriptions are frightening them terribly. Even if people maintain this extremely careful life style, I am not sure it is a possibility for most people anymore. Although life expectancies are increasing, no one knows how long his or her own personal time line will be, so if retirement is postponed, you may have no retirement at all. My father in law worked in an awful job until he died suddenly at 56. Never got to have the garden stand he wanted.

I plan to have to work to age 70 and hope my health stays good enough to enable this. It is scary.

[spooky3]

7. Notice that they didn't say whether she was married

or had a partner. Maybe her Wal-Mart pay supplemented a more comfortable paycheck brought home by a hubby for most of her life.

With housing prices what they are today, it is tough for everyone, particularly singles who are competing with double-income households.

[SoCalDem]

8. Inherited wealth figures into a comfortable retirement too

and is rarely mentioned..

I know lots of folks who were ONLY children who inherited a lot when their folks passed on, It enabled them to pay off their own houses at a yooung age.. If people do not have a housepayment for many years duing their 30's & 40's they can amass a lot of "retirement money"..

Every situation is different, and unless you have all the information, you can never generalize..

[shrike]

14. I'm one of those people

Can't tell you what a difference it's made in my life. I frankly don't know how other people my age (mid-40s) are going to be able to save for retirement, with the mortgage and monthly debt payments they have to make.

[InkAddict]

9. Boy Scout Motto Gone Awry

Of course we're not prepared, anymore...our 401K's have been looted (if we've ever managed to be eligible to contribute at all), our small business employers have been put out of business by the likes of Wal-Mart, our three-month "rainy-day" cash funds have been depleted to pay public utilities and prescriptions, we've long since cut out the artery-clogging fast-food but find it difficult to plan low-cost nutritious menus that don't clog our arteries and don't leave us anti-oxidant deficient), our gym memberships/personal trainers are a luxury we can no longer afford, our IT and solid new-tech TCQ manufacturing "jobs of the future" have been in- and out-sourced, our government contracts have been doled out to friends of the BFEE, our local companies have relocated, closed, or merged and halved of employees, our credit cards assiduously chosen for the best rates and banks have been given reign to "fee" us over the limits in order to provide us w/personal bankers who don't know how to use a calculator and replaced with collectors who can't read the monitors in front of them nor speak our language(s). And while we're searching for that perfect new job, we're forced through "gratitude" and State law to caretake our elderly parent(s) who continually remind us of their own "self-reliance" and blind faith in the justness of our heroic leaders. Each April, we'd better be good taxpayers though. Can you say, "consumer no longer - survivalist."

[InkAddict]

10. Education and day care given away free to

welfare queens while persons who paid retail for their extra education through investments/and work in the real world and who balanced their energies to succeed in both get the shaft at the HR offices, and now to add insult-to-injury, experience the loss of their primary sources of income (an ongoing Class War against Middle America since Bush I) and rape of their savings and assets meant for retirement plans. - NOT UNPREPARED - RAPED!

Meanwhile, some of these old fogies w/the 10th grade educations of the late 30s get pensions, private health care prescription plans, Love Boat living in assisted living centers, so their precious holy-roller egos aren't damaged - never eligible for low-income programs and so proud, Vet benes,...and the right to call the boomers lazy - NOT! (They had a whole lifetime to recovery from the Great Depression while we'll get, if lucky, about five years to recreate a lifetime of planning for retirement. We've churned more $$ through the pockets of these brainless moron thugs than any generation before. Many saw their duty to serve and laid out their lives to fight dirty little wars abroad without the cushy deals afforded their dads. Just consider the source! On top of that, would it have hurt any less if boomers' children died defending the US from the heathen hoard on Texas soil? No, pre-emption for profit is so much better for Grandpa Crash-cart Cheny and his slimey winged monkeys. NOT UNPREPARED - RAPED!

But, hey, that low-to-medium paying job was always the second job. My first job was raising two well-rounded taxpayers by example and experience since their public educational system left so much to be desired. It looks like it's a good thing though I can't help the feeling that they're getting the same scam! NOT UNPREPARED - RAPED!

Listen up leaders and you Repuke-lovin people w/jobs - I'm going to vote for anything that will increase your taxes so that cesspool sucks you in as well and until you're in the same boat! Don't worry, I'm also going to blow cigarette smoke into your filthy tight-fisted uncharitable faces as long as I live and keep pouring you drinks and feeding you lots of fattening desserts that will continue to inflate your violent, arrogant, narcissitic, tortured, perverted, greedy, lustful don't give a damn attitudes. NOT UNPREPARED - RAPED!

Thanks for allowing yet another rant...:nuke:

[shrike]

13. Before you go after "welfare queens"

keep in mind that life on the dole is no picnic. I've known a few folks on welfare in my day, and believe me, they weren't having much fun. If you're angry about welfare, better to turn your sights to corporate welfare. Those folks are having a much better time, believe me.

[InkAddict]

15. Mea culpa

it was certainly an unfortunate choice of words (but I was ranting). I'd never suggest that some folks don't deserve a helping hand (even though from what I've heard and read, the programs as is don't provide all that much empowerment). Anyway, once trained, I don't think the approach to an open HR door should be subsidized with incentives to hire, over and above the gift of the free education. Some of us did pay from our own pockets and have a right to expect FAIR competition. So, of course, you are absolutely correct when you speak of "corporate welfare" as provocative; it incites ranting and warps a straight shot...

Then there are those other system players...

[SoCalDem]

16. defining "fair" is always a problem

:(

[InkAddict]

17. Right.....

One might number prospective employees/current employees 1-10 and assign each resource to one of the matching discriminatory factors listed below; weight the factor insofar as the reviewer's subjective prejudices, again, 1-10, with regard to each resource based on that issue; after making use of same for the purpose of discriminating, renumber the prospects/employees and recalculate for reuse at the next "opportunity." For best results, use often and pick factors randomly to avoid a pattern.

1)race (nuff said), 2)sex (nature vs. nuture), 3)religion (important in faith-based eligibility/heresy trials if you can force recantment), 4)national origin (bad patriot registered to vote vs. chocolatier?), 5)physical disability (old Cyclops strikes again- assign more points for third breast if you are the owner of a space bar), and 6)age (dirty old men wear collars/how many blondes does it take to raise profits?), 7)military status(Gung Ho/PTSD-certified already/someone in DC may send them on a very long field trip), 8)sibling order/marital status (oh-oh, there's social problems/caretaking/codependency in the near future, 9)weight (brings the best dish to the take-ins but may be dead by 10AM, and 10)personal attractiveness/appeal (sensitivity training--you mean I gotta hug this one)

(Note: values may be accumulated for additional impetus in action plan.

This way, FAIR, is much more precise, LOL.

[shrike]

18. You're absolutely right about it not providing empowerment

From what I've seen it puts them in a rut they have a hard time escaping.

[TrogL]

11. I'm all prepared

I've got my cardboard box folded up and stashed in my storeroom.

I've picked out a good spot for it near the exhaust from an apartment building.

I looked at my pension statement. If I stay on here until retirement, I'll just nicely be able to afford hot dogs once a week.

[SoCalDem]

12. need some roommates??

We will be moving to the outskirts of Dire Straits, USA if we live long enough to actually retire:(