Maybe I'm naive but I don't think that many people did nothing to plan for their futures.
What do you think?
But everyone has a big screen and cable.
Yep.
With my own family I think it is worse.
I am from a family of eight. Of those eight I think only two of us put away more than just an employer retirement.
Our consumer culture seems to encourage instant gratification and little saving.
My step children despite my efforts never keep a dime in their pocket let alone in a savings account.
I find it sad, but not hard at all to believe.
Look, the vast majority of Americans have been on a 20-30 year binge of overspending, over-consuming, and virtually no saving. The party has been fun, all the goodies, trips, SUVs, toys, clothes, big screens, wine, jewelry, and of course, that (must-have-better-than-the-relatives) “dream house” that they’re now upside-down on. And China Inc. has been the chief pimp, bartender, and caterer of all this overconsumption, which has enabled hundreds of millions of rural Chinese workers to achieve a level of income they never could have under communism.
But the party’s over. We’re broke and because China kept it’s currency cheap to encourage us to keep buying, we don’t even have millions of jobs in the US for people to work at if they wanted to.
And we did it to ourselves.
Do you believe these numbers? I find it hard to believe that many people did not take any action to prepare for their retirement.
Maybe I’m naive but I don’t think that many people did nothing to plan for their futures.
What do you think?
3 posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 5:26:57 PM by A Cyrenian
They thought they did save for their retirement. They were told that’s what Social Security was for....but the government didn’t put it in a lockbox for them, they spent it instead. But they(the government) have to blame the citizenry, they won’t admit their guilt in screwing America...
RE: “Maybe I’m naive but I don’t think that many people did nothing to plan for their futures.
What do you think?”
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I don’t know where you live, but I know several near-or-in-retirement boomers living in (or from) CA who have saved little or nothing.
A few have worked a long time at jobs in companies still providing good pensions (OR govt. jobs, with the richest benefits) but the rest are screwed, or planning to live on other peoples’ money. They’d best not count on mine.
Social security cannot be counted on to support anyone, if it even continues to exist. That alone is not enough. Lots of people left jobs for various reasons and took their 401K money and spent it or invested it unwisely in risky schemes.
I WISH I knew a lot of people who had prepared or are preparing appropriately for retirement. CA is now a disgusting welfare state and getting worse every year.
Considering the widespread financial illiteracy among Americans today, I’m not surprised in the least.
I believe the numbers,but I don’t think they tell the whole story. Lots of people have pensions from the government or their employers that they’re counting on. These folks haven’t been irresponsible, although they have perhaps been naive. The pension plans are in big trouble and we’ll all end up bailing out the folks who haven’t prepared on their own.