Posted on 03/27/2008 10:54:24 AM PDT by sickoflibs
When I hear my fellow baby boomers gleefully talk about their elaborate plans to retire ASAP, head for the Tuscan hills, or otherwise continue their lifelong quest for "self-actualization," I have to bite my tongue.
It's not that I'm all work and no play. But there's just something - make that lots of things - wrong, in general, with retiring at 55, 62 or even 65. I would go so far as to call it profoundly selfish and unpatriotic.
However, if Americans retired later, either staying in their current jobs or taking up "encore careers" - what Marc Freedman of Civic Ventures calls do-good, later-life jobs - we could significantly slow the growth of our multitrillion-dollar national debt, which is largely driven by rising Medicare and Social Security costs (as yesterday's Social Security trustees' report makes abundantly clear). We also could keep more people in a labor force that would no longer be growing appreciably if not for immigrants. For individuals, working longer can mean more income and savings and something to bequeath to one's children. For the nation, if millions of us worked until 67 instead of 62, Americans' wealth and consumption would increase appreciably, fueling stronger economic growth. That added income would provide about $800 billion in additional tax revenues, and reduce government benefit costs by at least $100 billion in 2045, according to Urban Institute calculations. This alone would cut the projected deficit in 2045 by 159 percent.
To encourage such behavior, Social Security benefits taken before age 66 or 70 could be more highly taxed, and employee rates of Social Security taxation could be progressively reduced for each year worked after 66 or 70. Or the government could provide a similar sliding tax credit for Americans who continue working beyond age 70.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
What a moron. The baby boomers just keep getting screwed. I recall my parents purchased their brand new home for 3500 dollars....on ONE income. Ya see Mom didn't have to work..
I recall Dad going to the gas station and telling him, "gimmie a bucks worth of regular"...Can anyone imagine?
Dad had the same secured job for years, ya see he didn't need to change jobs every year or two because the companies weren't being downsized or being shipped off shore in the pursuit of higher profits and peasant labor...
Most everyone in the country spoke English, and daily phrases like mass murders and drive-by shootings were unheard of.
I think about it, and realize that many people today, are paying as much on their MONTHLY mortgage payment, as my parents paid in the 50s for the *TOTAl* cost of their home.
And now were told that all the money, or much of the money this corrupt government confiscated from us in the form of Social Security, won't be paid back...
And this guy suggests the baby boomers are all selfish. Wow...
True, there is no right answer, but on the surface I'm inclined to retire as early as possible if my finances and economic conditions hold up once I turn 55. Not to say I'll quit working altogether, but at least cut my hours back significantly and find something a lot less stressful that I would enjoy doing while balancing it with personal things that I have wanted the time to do.
But retirement is not a right. Most people throughout history did not fully retire and spend 20 years living large. That is not the norm, and will not be the norm in the future.
What we have is a generation of people that were lied to and believe that the government will take care of them in their old age. That will not and can not happen long term. There just isn't the money to support 1/3 or more of the population with all the benies and Viagra that we currently are. This nation aborted and contracepted the workers that were to replace the Boomer's, and we are about to reap the whirlwind.
My father is 66 years old, and plans to work full time until at least 76 or 77. Not because he has to (he really doesn't) but because he feels it is his obligation to keep active and productive as long as he can. That, and after spending forty plus years as a farmer working full time in a plant is a type of retirement!
Now I know that many don't have the health to do that, and that is fine. I also know that many have the means to not have to do that, and that is fine also. But to expect to live a life of leisure while someone else picks up the tab is foolish at best. The good book talks of man toiling for his bread all the days of his life, and if a man will not work neither should he eat.
You are right, they did get screwed.
Inflation is a killer, and so is the taxes. But the sad thing is that just because you got screwed, that doesn’t make screwing everyone else right.
All the SS money you paid in (and all that I have) is gone. Long gone. I never expect to see any of it back.
Eat your heart out Andrew L. Yarrow, I start drawing in three months at 62. Having survived two years in a war zone and working as a drudge to pay these taxes for the last 40 years, I see no reason to wait. Plus, in just a few years, if I survive, I’ll be living on YOUR SSI payments. Hahahahahahaah!
I probably will live that long but what I will do is take the lower payment, pay the taxes for as long as I continue to earn outside income and invest the gross in a Roth IRA.
Bet me. I'll get what this corrupt government confiscated from me, one way or another.
At age 35 I am at the bottom of this ponzi scheme
The kind of money - about 15% of gross salary - that comes out of the employer's hide when he decides to hire you is enough to fund a retirement on easy street if conservatively invested until age 65.l was revolted by the Social Security scam before you were born. I don't see the point of refusing the underpayment that they're paying me now, tho - and as you know the government bonds in which the "social security trust fund" is "invested" are not an asset to the government - and therefore are of no use to you in keeping my Social Security payments from causing inflation.
You're the same age as my children, and I have grandchildren - and I simply have never understood seniors who promote increases in benefits for seniors when it has to come out of the hides of their own children! You have to figure that the Social Security retirement age will get gradually raised to 70 or so. On the bright side, the limiting case of raising the retirement age for Social Security would be to eliminate the program altogether. Ditto for taxing SocSecurity benefits . . . which seems to be well over 50% taxable if you have investment income.
One small consolation: geezers with IRAs or 401(k)s pay income tax that was deferred - which won't cover the full freight of SocSecurity but isn't completely trivial in relation to it, either.
Early retirement selfish, unpatriotic
More likely it is the strain of watching their pensions and 401 (k)' turning into petty cash. I saw news stories last week, of places where "They were dropping like flies" from heart attacks. Consider the Bear-Stearns people who had most of their net worth in company stock.
I was at one place where someone's cousin was running their Balanced Fund. At the time, we could only change the mix two weeks after each end of quarter, so could do nothing but watch as it unravelled. I was lucky-I only lost $36,000. A million was lost just in my building.
I remember when Bush tried pushing his SS savings account idea democrats all came out and said that these government bonds(government IOUs to itself) are solid because the government never defaults on bonds. This is an outright lie that government wont default on bonds to itself. Furthermore, courts have ruled that the payees are NOT entitled, that they can have benefits cut. Lastly, the government TAXES the benefits (a double tax.) So the government can pay back the phony bonds to itself to fund SS by taxing the SS benefits itself. What a scheme! It's like ethanol, every politician is in on it so no-one will explain why it doesn't work,. But dont worry, congressional pensions ARE safe and they can retire long before 65.
What about people like me, who retired at 25 but kept showing up for work? :-)
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