Posted on 09/21/2005 1:02:59 PM PDT by qam1
As debates over Social Security and Medicare heat up, Americans might feel like doing what the old urban myth says the Inuit do: Ship the old folks out on the ice floes. It's cheap, simple and good for the polarbears.
It is also, arguably, a bit coldhearted. So here's a warm and loving alternative that the U.S. government should endorse: Send the old people to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
By one estimate, almost 20 percent of gross domestic product will go to seniors by 2030. Baby boomers are the first generation of grasshoppers in U.S. history. Their parents and grandparents, scarred by the Depression, scrimped and saved. The boomers put it on plastic. With private household savings rates near all-time lows, bills are coming due and the facts are increasingly clear: Some boomers not only won't be able to afford the retirement they dream of, many won't even be able to afford the retirement they fear.
The cost of retirement is also going up. In 1940, the median price for a house in Arizona was less than half the national average. Today, with two generations of retirees swelling its population, Arizona's housing costs are well above the national average. Prices at assisted-living facilities are rising at more than twice the rate of inflation.
There are simple, though not painless, steps individuals can take to improve their prospects. Put the plastic away for a while, pay down debts, build up savings. Delaying retirement a few years gives you higher Social Security payments, lets you squirrel some money away and allows any investments you already have more time to grow. And you can always develop a more realistic set of expectations: Do they have to be golden years? What's wrong with silver?
But don't underestimate the economic wisdom of migration.......
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Here's an idea... tie them to the backs of illegal aliens as we deport. Kill two birds with one stone!
If we send our retirees to Mexico..we will certainly EXPECT them to be SUpported in the same, generous manner that we now give ti Illegals...
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
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As a boomer in retirement, I like the idea of travel into Mexico and Central America. Reduce the corruption, make it safer and they will come.
As far as money, Social Security alone can live will in these countries. Of those mentioned Costa Rica is the best, with many from the US already living well there.
Whaddya mean "send them." At age 60, one of my serious options for retirement is to cash out here and move south of the border. The SS check gets automatically deposited, and my money stays in US banks. I buy a small place in a nice small town, not too far from the coast, and shift my diet to the local economy.
A guy could do a lot worse, frankly. Mexico, Costa Rica. Lots of possibilities.
Having traveled a lot in that part of the world, I know that the people in smaller communities there are nice folks. It's an idea with considerable potential.
Don't need to do more than go on a cruise or two, if I had a mind too, which I might, just to get out of the way of all those herding Xers stampeding to Wal-mart.
And swamp coolers had only been in use a few years. My grandfather built a house in Tucson in 1940 and it was initially uncooled, and had a then common sun porch where you could sit and vegetate when it was 105 degrees out.
That's one of the big reasons houses in Arizona used to be cheap, numbers notwithstanding.
But mostly, this article is just more Globalist chicanery: why else would the Council on Foreign Relations be writing it? The idea is to try and mix up the populations, create intentional intermingling of economies, blur the border, blur the distinction between nationalities. We're all AmexiCans now, right? Just one big happy North American "commoonity".
If Mexico would curtail the corruption and make travel for seniors safer, I could see our more mature population traveling there and boosting the economic conditions of those who remain.
Ya gotta wonder why houses in the better areas of San Jose are protected w/ private guards w/ full auto rifles.
I guess the more remote locales would be safer - NOT.
Actually, I'd rather see the Grand Canyon or maybe go find the Dutchman's lost mine or wander over to New Mexico to see the ruins or go east to drive atop Skyline Drive or spend a week at Epcot Center before a really big hurricane blows it away or go scare up Elvis' ghost at Graceland or do dirty dancing at Mountain Lake or snorkel a wave at Waikiki or . . .
And gives you a chance to donate up to $11,000 per year to SS if you remain working and earn the maximum amount taxed ($87,900). Regardless of your wages, you (and your employer)are funding those higher SS payments.
And don't forget that full retirement age for people born 1943-1954 is now 66.
I'd rather be on the ice floe.
Sounds good to me.... by then they will all be up here so you can support them,....and we can go down there and set up a new Republic!!!LOL!!!I like it!!!!
......or wander over to New Mexico to see the ruins ......
The latest ruins are in Mexico. The Anasazi migrated from Chaco to Aztec To Paquim just south of the border in Mexoco so there is pretty strong precedent.All of these cities ae located on the same meridian.
you can't own property in Mexico - sorry.
NEXT!
This is insane. Who would want to live there ..??
A bunch of retirees from the San Diego area bought homes south of the border, and within 2 years, the Mexican govt evicted them and took their homes away from them - leaving them with nothing.
You also can't own guns in Mexico. Not even cartridges. You will end up in THEIR jail if you do.
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