Posted on 06/03/2010 11:15:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Yesterday was my 58th birthday. If I were a Greek worker I could retire. Although pension payments in Greece normally start around 61, special provisions allow anyone to retire at 58 if they have been in employment for 35 years. That, as it happens, is how long I have been at work. My index-linked pensions from the Greek Government would be worth 75 to 90 per cent of the average salary in the country, guaranteed for the rest of my life by the State.
If you want to know why Greece is going bankrupt and why the euro seems to be on the verge of disintegration, look no farther. The best argument I have ever heard for a break-up of the euro was this observation in a German newspaper: “The Greeks go on to the streets to protest against an increase of the pension age from 61 to 63. Does this mean that Germans should extend the working age from 67 to 69, so Greeks can enjoy their retirement?”
This, however, is not another article about self-indulgent Greeks and self-righteous Germans. The battle over bailouts in Europe is only a sideshow compared with the great social conflict that lies ahead all over the world in the next 20 years. This will not be a struggle between nations or social classes, but between generations — and it is a conflict that, in Britain, begins in earnest this year. The end of the Second World War in May 1945 marked the start of the baby boom, which lasted until the mid-1960s. Now, 65 years later, the corresponding retirement revolution is about to shake up our society, economy and political institutions.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I still remember the shock of my first paycheck.
Not a bad start. No! Just restrict the spending and start paying it back. Just like I have to do when I have a debt.
And, those receiving the welfare freebies will have to work or go hungry. Life isn't fair, but taxing more to pay for Congresses misdeeds isn't an option. But, that is the way they will play it because no one has the gumption to step up and do things the right, honest way.
I will certainly “accept” social security but I don’t expect it to last long. Either it will be cut off or massive inflation will destroy the value of what little I will get. If you haven’t noticed, the cost-of-living adjustments have been ended. Back in the nineties when DEflation was real and everyone was a little better off every year even with no raises the COLAs continued right along and they were uniformly upward. Now that actual inflation is biting and food and necessities are ratcheting up steadily the COLA is ended.They are preparing for the Grand Inflation and SS had to be taken off the escalator so that the government can get some “good” from the shrinking dollar welshing operation. That is how the babyboom retirement “crisis” is being “solved.” SS will be “healthy” again pretty soon but the monthly check won’t buy a night out much less pay the rent.
Nope, Barry is a member.
The Baby Boom lasted from 1946 until 1964 in the United States. There SHOULD have been another boom from the late 1960s through the 1990s, but there wasn’t. Some have TRIED to call late Generation X and Generation Y an “echo boom” because there was a slight increase in the birth rate, but there wasn’t. It took until 2007 for America to break the record for the number of births in a year that had been set in 1957; however, in 1957 the population was less than 180 million, compared with over 300 million in 2007.
EVERY government program that exists (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) was designed based on the assumption that birth rates would remain about the same (not the number of births, but births per 1000) and that simply hasn’t happened and nobody wants to face the fact that a civilization CANNOT survive if its population starts to shrink. Everyone wants to talk about illegal aliens, but nobody wants to consider the fact that they are here because we have created a need for them. The “elephant in the room” is that for Social Security to make it we MUST have more people paying into it and this is behind the push to legalized the illegal aliens.
Well said.
The "ME" generation has forever asked "What's in it for me?" Why would that change now? Sacrifice is an alien concept to the vat majority of your cohort and always has been.
Inflammatory insults delivered to people you know nothing about does not speak well for your level of intelligence.
My children range from -2 weeks to 17. We homeschool and will never take a dime from any level of government. I don't want them to suffer the continuation of these future murdering ponzi-schemes of SocialistSecurity and Mediscare. You pay your dad what you think you owe him and I'll do the same with mine and lets leave our children out of this.
I'm on the leading edge of X. The sooner the lies die the better off we all we be. Please God, let things go wrong soon.
For the past 60 years, everyone has said “Social Security is an inviolable compact between the generations.”
***********
Actually, no, EVERYONE did not say that.
The Supreme Court of the United States said, in 1960, that no one has any right to receive Social Security benefits, regardless of how much they have paid in Social Security tax or for how long they paid them. Also, even if you’ve already been getting SS checks, you can be cut of at any time for any reason or no reason.
See Flemming v. Nestor.
See Flemming v. Nestor.
“Damn! I never get credit for anything. I was born June 29, 1945, a little too old to be a boomer.”
Want to be an “Honorary Boomer” so you can get blamed for everything?
Who else but the greatest generation built he edifice and their younger siblings, the father and uncles of the Baby boomers, who are now doing their duty and dying off.
Excellent post.
Social security was supposed to take care of widows, orphans, the weak and disabled, and to provide a pension for worn-out workers who were supposed to survive “retirement” by five But modern medicine has added fifty years onto the life span, often in the process keeping alive many of us who ought to have died.
Thank you for an excellent article that is as pertinent to America as to Great Britain. What he outlines herein is why I continue to state that I will not see a penny of Social Security, after putting into it for over 30 years.
At 51 years of age, I will work another 10-15 years before retiring and asking for Social Security. The next 10-15 years worth of Social Security/SSI outlay will see the program thoroughly bankrupted with extreme pressure on the people contributing to it.
Social Security will become a welfare program for those senior citizens who were smart enough to waste all of their money partying and living lavish over a lifetime, while the idiot seniors who scimped and saved and built up a nest egg, are punished for doing so.
Great article until the author goes brain dead at the end with this idea:
“An equally effective alternative would be to give mothers an extra vote for every child under voting age”
Right, lets give all of the welfare queens like Octomom, and all the illegal aliens with 8 anchor babies a huge amount of disproportionate political power so they can vote even more largesse from the public treasure.
Brilliant facking idea. Bloody brilliant.
"Ending Welfare As We Know It Since 1994."
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