Retirement homes, the new work houses?

[Javaman]

I'm on a major rant jag today. I'm full of opinions today lol.

While listening to Randi yesterday, a few older callers called in regarding having to work until they die because as the costs of everything goes up, wages, pensions, salaries, etc, either don't change, stay low or do not meet the cost of living increase.

Maybe I'm a bit Orwellian in my thinking, but I see a scary future where retirement homes will be used as factories.

Older folks once wishing to "retire" (sorry to use the quotes but it's getting as so that it will be a fantastic notion) will be the new source of cheap labor.

Currently, prisons are used in such areas a telemarketing, help services and various ordering phone banks. What, honestly, prevents some corporation from approaching a retirement homes and proposing that same exact situation to them? Instead of the residents living out their last days there,(even though they have paid for that right), they instead work and save on their monthly payment.

The upper scale retirement homes will be put off by this. However, the ones that struggle to provide basic services will jump at the chance.

This option will presented as an option for residents to get the full medical benefit they require in the older years. Saying that, they are still full and productive members of society that still have a lot to contribute! (call me crazy, but the notion of having a lot left to contribute for me, usually falls into the category of being a wise person who gives back to the community, not working as a plebe for a corp)
So instead of paying their full amount or being wards of the state, the corporation will be looking out for their best interest and provide them with a top notch health plan. Aka, using them as a cheap source of labor.

This is still one of the last sacred cows that has yet to be fully exploited. Yes, I stay up at night worrying about shit like this.

So when people my age, 42, jokingly say, "I'll be working until I drop dead or they will find me changed to my desk when I die", how far from the mark are they really?

[Pryderi]

1. Logan's Run is the Answer!

[Cooley Hurd]

10. Shit, my crystal's been red for a decade!

Run! It's Sandman!:rofl:

[shanti]

18. "it's my job......

to freeze you!" ;)

[shoelace414]

2. Good news Everyone, Arts and Crafts time has been extended!

[faithnotgreed]

5. but why are we all required to make the same thing?

and why do i have to be in this room with no windows from 6am - 3pm without breaks?

[LSparkle]

3. Depends upon their mental and physical agility

Corps won't necessarily want to employ people (even for cheap) who can't produce for them -- whether that's taking phone orders or producing actual goods. The one thing that may save the elderly from this fate is the fact that their efforts wouldn't win out in a cost-benefit analysis.

[dysfunctional press]

16. that's my thinking too-

you're talking about people in their 'declining' years- losing both physical and mental accuity- who's going to employ that on a broad scale?

[EC]

22. That's what scares me when people like Sanatorium says

that people should work until 70 and that's when Social Security should kick in....My hands are so stiff now from arthritis, I have a hard time typing, but my boss is old and understands...what is it going to be like when he's gone and I'm looking for a new job in my 60's? Not all old people can be Wal-Mart greeters, they only need one per store..

[Sammy Pepys]

4. I doubt it.

I will try to do this as respectfully as possible.

Most retirees still capable of working regularly would probably not be found in retirement homes. Retirement homes become an option when greater services and assistance is required by someone. So I doubt anyone would find much value is converting a retirement home into a cheap labor factory.

[Javaman]

6. I respect your opinion and I agree with you completely, yet...

I don't put a single thing past these corps any longer.

Check out the Canadian documentary "The Corporation" or even "Wal-mart: the high cost of low pricing" and watch their corporate greed dictate what is right and what is wrong. Needless to say, they don't consider much wrong with their practices.

[Sammy Pepys]

15. And I agree with you too....

...but I don't think the attitudes of corps is going to turn nursing homes into forced labor camps. There's pretty much zero chance anyone would be able to get away with that.

[Javaman]

20. Well, see that's just it, it won't be looked upon as forced labor camps

and certainly won't be portrayed as such.

what sounds more attractive:

gulag

or

a remote retreat run with rehabilitating the socially misunderstood

that's an exteme example, but I think you get the idea.

given the lies that have been told to us over these last 6 years, would anyone have believed that 35% of the population find it okay for the gov't to spy on us or to torture people? But those 35% mouthbreathers, think it's perfectly okay, because the propaganda machines with their newspeak, makes it just fine and dandy in their minds.

This concept has nothing to do with violating human rights, it has everything with media promotion.

I really hope this concept never comes to bear but I don't put it past them.

[Warpy]

7. Many widows are working NOW

because social security isn't enough to live on and the husband's pension died with him. Check out food places during school hours, chances are there's at least one granny behind the counter. WalMart is full of grannies and some grandpas. They're not on their feet because they like it.

Actually, you have it backwards: Workhouses may become the next generation of retirement homes where old folks have to work for their keep because they have no other means of support. Old folks heavily populated the old work houses, along with abandoned women and children and a few families that had fallen onto very hard times. Most of them were remarkably humane for their time, but it was considered a shameful thing for a man to have his family go to one. An interesting history of them in the UK is at http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

If you were too ill to work, I guess you were supposed to find an alley to crawl into to die.

[cassiepriam]

8. There won't be any nursing homes except for the wealthy.

The rest of us will have to work til we drop.

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. The word you are looking for is Dickensian, as in Charles Dickens

Retirement homes as workhouses... that is just sick.

"More?! You want... MORE?!"

[Javaman]

11. You nailed it. Having read a lot of Dickens...

I'm hitting myself in the head for missing the obvious.

Like someone mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, that many older folks are now working part or full time because they can't make ends meet. What keeps the corps from taking that next step?

And also, what of the people who now declare bancruptcy and can't pay back what is required of them?

What will happen to them?

These fucking repukes have turned the clock back. We are seeing the early stages of a return to a Dickens-type of times.

[sam sarrha]

12. i can finally find a job in5 years

[frankenforpres]

13. happy gilmore?

didnt his grandmother get put in a forced labor retirement home?

[Swamp Rat]

21. Yes, but the old folks got revenge on their 'minder' near the end.

:D Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Sinti]

14. I don't know about the infirm retirees, but

Way back when, shortly before the new pukes took over the House with the Contract on America, I was doing a job for a group called the Federalist Society (don't beat on me, I have to make a living and like to stay informed about those I consider dangerous). It was an open ended conference, a lot of members talking with each other, and the work house was a big deal for them.

They want work houses! They want the poor to be placed in them, basically any one eligible for welfare. They also wanted the disabled of all sorts to be placed in a similar situation, with jobs they could manage, and forced to work as much as they could. No Free Rides for anyone basically was their philosophy.

Getting rid of Social Security completely was also a priority, as well as extreme tort reform, i.e., companies cannot be sued by persons, or groups, end of conversation. The only person that can take them to court would be the government itself.

Very scary stuff. I thought for a little while the Contract on America would bring some of this about, but then Clinton refused to sign, they shut down the government, and so on. I assume they'd eventually want to bring some of this stuff to fruition, with all the thinking and talking they've done about it.

Maybe they've become enlightened in the passing 10 years.

[acmejack]

17. And we have Four of them on the Supremes now?

Oh goodie, if * gets to name one more, their fantasies will reach fruition. Fascism, get your fascism here!

[Sinti]

19. Gives me that cold feeling in the pit of my stomach

I realize daily that I know too much on background for my own good. Ignorance is bliss they say.

:tinfoilhat: