Consider themsleves lucky. Those born in the USA in 1960 or later need to be 67 to enjoy "full benefits". In reality for many Americans it is a work until you die economy. I don't see how a person can live on ~$1,600 a month (Gross).Originally Posted by Billy Batson
Apparently the French government is moving the retirement from age 60 to age 62. The workers are revolting!
http://www.france24.com/en/france
Its 65 up here for the time being. But it will surely have to change by the time I'll be retiring. No way to afford all those baby boomers!Consider themsleves lucky. Those born in the USA in 1960 or later need to be 67 to enjoy "full benefits". In reality for many Americans it is a work until you die economy. I don't see how a person can live on ~$1,600 a month (Gross).Apparently the French government is moving the retirement from age 60 to age 62. The workers are revolting!
http://www.france24.com/en/france
Considering ourselves lucky is how we got to a 67 retirement age. They should be angry and rioting instead.Consider themsleves lucky. Those born in the USA in 1960 or later need to be 67 to enjoy "full benefits". In reality for many Americans it is a work until you die economy. I don't see how a person can live on ~$1,600 a month (Gross).Apparently the French government is moving the retirement from age 60 to age 62. The workers are revolting!
http://www.france24.com/en/france
There's one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it's one word long.. people. No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It's people that kill every revolution.
Thought this was funny... I've never seen it before
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLB8Rx6FzOE"]YouTube - Stephen King American Express Commercial (1985)[/ame]
Considering ourselves lucky is how we got to a 67 retirement age. They should be angry and rioting instead.Consider themsleves lucky. Those born in the USA in 1960 or later need to be 67 to enjoy "full benefits". In reality for many Americans it is a work until you die economy. I don't see how a person can live on ~$1,600 a month (Gross).Apparently the French government is moving the retirement from age 60 to age 62. The workers are revolting!
http://www.france24.com/en/france
as a 51 going on 52 year old USA based sir_baby_boommer...
Had I my druthers, I would much rather the gov. return at this time all the social security $'s they've stolen from my over the past 36 years that I've been forced to pay in, let me invest it as I choose, and not have a social government retirement plan at all.
by the time I reach whatever retirement age is in the next 1.5 decades, social security will be bankrupt, benefits will be reduced to a non-livable amount, and I won't be able to retire anyways. Or, I'll be dead long before I get a minimalistic return on the money I given up...while some slacker is using that hard earned cash I've been forced to give up.
Socialism is great for the have nots... kind of gives a sorry return for the guys that work hard to pay the bills though.
just streaming my consciousness.
Boy, I could go on and on and on about this....perhaps I'm jaded from having been out of work for 18 months...Considering ourselves lucky is how we got to a 67 retirement age. They should be angry and rioting instead.Consider themsleves lucky. Those born in the USA in 1960 or later need to be 67 to enjoy "full benefits". In reality for many Americans it is a work until you die economy. I don't see how a person can live on ~$1,600 a month (Gross).Apparently the French government is moving the retirement from age 60 to age 62. The workers are revolting!
http://www.france24.com/en/france
as a 51 going on 52 year old USA based sir_baby_boommer...
Had I my druthers, I would much rather the gov. return at this time all the social security $'s they've stolen from my over the past 36 years that I've been forced to pay in, let me invest it as I choose, and not have a social government retirement plan at all.
by the time I reach whatever retirement age is in the next 1.5 decades, social security will be bankrupt, benefits will be reduced to a non-livable amount, and I won't be able to retire anyways. Or, I'll be dead long before I get a minimalistic return on the money I given up...while some slacker is using that hard earned cash I've been forced to give up.
Socialism is great for the have nots... kind of gives a sorry return for the guys that work hard to pay the bills though.
just streaming my consciousness.
Also as a 51 year old+ (1959 was a good year!), I have some SERIOUS worries about our future and the "quality of life" for so many people that hit 60+ over the next several decades. There is just so much that is badly broken in this economy and society (not a Democratic or Republican thing, but a group cluster-f#@! over many years) that I fear the ENORMOUS number of baby boomers who will reach 60+ over the next 10-15 years are ill prepared financially to even attempt to retire. And who will support these aged boomers? There is a scary mismatch between the number of younger workers and the sheer size of the boomer population. Never have we seen this before and we are not prepared as a nation/economy to handle it. Many of these boomers will be forced to work well beyond 65+ to support themselves and where will the jobs be for the younger folks coming out of high school and college? Mostly taken by old codgers like myself. People young and old are going to suffer mightily in the next 20 years....
wiz steps off his soap box and goes back to work...
Dragline : Nothin'. A handful of nothin'. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothin'. Just like today when he kept comin' back at me - with nothin'.
Luke : Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I'm so full of cheery thoughts this morning...
I'm sure many of you saw the recent statistic that the amount of student loans outstanding is now greater than all the credit card debt in the US.
Well, more and more people have gone back to school because they cannot find jobs in this economy 1) because of the Great Recession and 2) for years, the US has "exported" many jobs overseas because it is far cheaper to put stuff like call centers and tech support in India/China etc. among other reasons. So, people get more schooling to give them the edge over the next person when trying to find a job. What is happening is thaat the general population is getting brighter but without job creation here in the US, many remain unemployed or seeking more education. The education industry (enrollments at community colleges, applications at universities) is absolutely booming (I should know, I have a senior in high school).
So, my prediction for the future is that we will have a huge surplus of advance degreed, brilliant people loaded with student loan debt through the nose that are still unable to find work, or if they do, will find themselves in positions that do not fully utilize their knowledge and skills.
Want to know what a future "financial disaster" will be? People defaulting on their student loans, just like people defaulting on their homes/mortgages in recent years. I see a large bubble forming here. Bubbles do not usually deflate on their own...they grow and grow until they explode.
Told you I was "cheery" today.
ok, the upside? Well, I'm the financial guy, so maybe I can figure out who are the winners and losers in this game and capitalize on it. Will let you know if I figure it all out.
Dragline : Nothin'. A handful of nothin'. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothin'. Just like today when he kept comin' back at me - with nothin'.
Luke : Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I have absolutely no trust in government, and don't expect there to be any money in SS when I retire. All the same, if things go right, and I work hard enough, I hope to be able to retire when I'm around 50, or at least be in a position to start my own business I can run but not have to work. Something with small starting capital and good prospects, have various ideas and I'll see how things go by the time I get there. I am also kind of an amateur inventor, so maybe I can get something patented for once that can help me retire at leisure, I don't expect to get rich. Maybe I'm wishing on a star, but I've never been the kind of person to sit back and let someone else make things happen for me. I firmly believe that if I work hard and end up with nothing, at least I gave it a good try and I have no regrets. All I'm saying is, I won't be expecting you hard working tax payers to support me.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
Already happening in the UK. Too many chiefs and not enough indians. We used to stop half the population from getting a higher education as we needed "cannon fodder", tradesmen and factory workers. Now everyone has a degree and noone wants to do the work.
The winners are all in oil. There is no recession there, thankfully.
Oil is big where I live, but it had it's dip when it hit under $70 a barrel. It's started picking back up over the past 6 years, but it's still not like it was before the crash.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
Well, they can't but that isn't the point. Even when Social Security was started and we had 20+ workers supporting one retiree the benefits were never designed to be ones sole source of retirement income. It was designed to be a supplement.
The bigger point, as I see it, is that many (most?) Americans have failed to plan and save for retirement. If they thought all of their working lives that they didn't need to show some fiscal sense and accountability then they are facing hard times indeed in their elderly years.
As a "certified" old fogey (I'll be 66 in December) I think I have a right to an opinion.
Back in the late '70s and early '80s, my wife and I decided that there was no way that Social Security would be around when I retired (she was a teacher, therefore unable to qualify for SS) so we decided to build up our retirement savings as much as we could. I started contributing the maximum to my company's 401k, she to her school system's 403b, and we put in the maximum we could into separate IRAs. Doing this, we have built up a substantial retirement portfolio. We figured that, if Social Security were still there, it would be "icing on the cake."
I "officially" retired in 2004 (when I was 59) so that I could take care of my mother. My wife continued to teach until 2006, when she retired with 37 years of service.
When I turned 62, I applied both for Social Security benefits and my company's pension. The latter wasn't then very great, but it was money coming in. When my wife retired, we began to receive her pension, which is fairly substantial and is increased each year. We were covered by her pension for health care (which was a fairly substantial cost) until we turned 65, where we began with Medicare (which was quite a bit less than we had been paying.)
As a result, we have not had to touch our retirement savings whatsoever--we've been able to make due with our pensions and my Social Security, plus the inheritance that I received when my mother died in 2008. We are often able to save a bit each month, too.
By doing things this way, we didn't spend a lot on friviolities. We don't have a wide-screen tv, we don't have fancy cars, our house is almost paid for, we didn't take fancy vacations, etc. We were among the last to get a microwave oven, a color tv, etc. We still do not have cell phones or fancy dvd players (what the heck is Blue Ray, anyway?). (By the way, I don't consider my Stephen King collection a friviolity.)
As a result, we are fairly well-off now. My wife can go on foreign vacations (I don't like to travel, so she goes with a girl friend or her sister), I can spend a little more on my books, we can make decent contributions to our church and gifts for our kids and grandkids.
John
Who does? One of life's essentials, IMO.
When I was about 8 years old (I'm 60 now) I saw a cartoon on television. It was about a lazy grasshopper and some industrious ants. It was black and white (as everything on TV was back then) and had no words spoken, just a musical soundtrack. It may be a famous story or a famous cartoon, I don't know. I think I have seen it once since then. Somehow, for some reason, it made a big impression on my young mind.
All summer long the ants were working, getting themselves ready for winter. The grasshopper on the other hand was playing with no regard for the future. He even found time to ridicule the ants for working all the time. Laughing, the grasshopper played all summer long.
Inevitably winter came and the ants were snug and well fed deep underground. The grasshopper was shown shivering and miserable walking through a snowstorm. The image of that grasshopper has, for some reason, stuck with me all these years.
The ants eventually let the grasshopper in and fed him and let him get warm but his misery was still very evident.
I vowed that I would not be a grasshopper and have worked my tail off all of my adult life preparing for "winter."
IMO, we have way too many grasshoppers in the country thinking somehow eventually the government will take care of their wants and needs. The problem is that it is the ants that fund the government are stretched pretty thin. I'm still proud to be an ant but I'm really getting tired of this epidemic of grasshoppers.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAd0jOuQg8o&p=FD3545BC239F4B68&playnext=1& index=11"]YouTube - Silly Symphony Cartoons — The Grasshopper And The Ants (Feb. 10, 1934)[/ame]
Notice the Queen wasn't working much either.
For some reason the You Tube link won't work on this computer here at the hospital. But if that is the cartoon I was talking about I will very much be looking forward to seeing it again and be grateful to you for finding it. It will be interesting to see how closely it matches my memory. Thanks!
The cartoon is almost exactly as you described, except it is in color.
It likely was shown in the theaters prior to a movie. If you saw it on TV long ago, it was likely B&W.
The CR says 1934.
I hear you John and kudos for those that can do it,
I unfortunately don't have a wife or a spousal income now or later, and because of unfortuanate series of events in my life, have only been able to start saving for retirement in the past 6 to 7 years.
I did make the move to buy a house 2.5 years ago, and barring any unfortunate events in the next 15 years, should have it paid off before age 65.
at this stage in life as of the past 6 years, I've been able to save 30% of my net paycheck each week plus an extra 6% to my 401K (which gets a .75 match)
I figure I might have enough to live on by retirement, but definitely will have to watch my spending in those later years should I make it that long.
I'm not planning on the social security being there... which sucks since it is MY money I paid in over the years...
My point: it is and was my money that I earned, I should have been able to keep it and invest it myself rather than having the government squander it away.
all private citizen's ponzie schemes are illegal, why is it the biggest ponzie scheme ever has government sanction?
note john: I appreciate that you made the sacrifices to save ( I have made the same sacrifices over the years just to eat). I could probably save more than the 36% I am right now... but having had melanoma cancer three times now in the past 15 years, including a class 4 where it was in my lymph nodes... I choose to take vacations, have a nice car, 3 big screen TVs, eat well, and play when I can... while I am still alive and before this damned arthritis and bad back I have get me to a point I can't do those things.
do note that I went from 1986 until 2006 without ever taking a vacation... of any type...as in no time off. I'm due now.
I am 100% with you John on that cell phone thing... ain't got one, never will if I have my way about it.
Yes! That is the one. Although I don't remember the spoken words and some other details it matches my memory pretty well.
And the happy ending is possible if there is only one grasshopper per colony of ants. Our problem today is a plague of grasshoppers.
Thanks again (!) for finding that.
I think that detail escaped my 8 year old brain because I knew even then that I would never be a Queen.
uh yeah...I make $1386 a month...ask me...it's VERY hard!!!Consider themsleves lucky. Those born in the USA in 1960 or later need to be 67 to enjoy "full benefits". In reality for many Americans it is a work until you die economy. I don't see how a person can live on ~$1,600 a month (Gross).Apparently the French government is moving the retirement from age 60 to age 62. The workers are revolting!
http://www.france24.com/en/france
AND...I WAS defaulted on my student loans til the government took my tax return this year to pay it off. Which is a good thing...but my poor family could have used it more than the fuckin government!!!!
Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.
just a thought, but wasn't it a loan, not a giveaway?... it's not the government's money, the loan comes from other people's taxes...uh yeah...I make $1386 a month...ask me...it's VERY hard!!!Consider themsleves lucky. Those born in the USA in 1960 or later need to be 67 to enjoy "full benefits". In reality for many Americans it is a work until you die economy. I don't see how a person can live on ~$1,600 a month (Gross).Apparently the French government is moving the retirement from age 60 to age 62. The workers are revolting!
http://www.france24.com/en/france
AND...I WAS defaulted on my student loans til the government took my tax return this year to pay it off. Which is a good thing...but my poor family could have used it more than the fuckin government!!!!
I went to school twice, ate lots and lots of meals of just rice... but paid my way with no loan... I worked.
Its not easy for anyone at the moment! The banks say they only lend me HALF of what i need for a morgage for a local house!
But what has cheered me up is the art work for 'The Angel's Game' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon ...
http://www.subterraneanpress.com/Mer...t_Code=zafon02
love your name there.... my pup is named: "The Thing"
and I have a dean Koontz book that is signed by you...
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