Fed Chair Bernanke: Impending Baby Boomer Retirement Could 'Seriously' Weaken Economy

FOX ^ | 01/18/07 | Unknown

[Froufrou]

I think I'm going to try the Jim Freedom retirement plan...works for Jim!

[Red Badger]

I worry that the grasshoppers are going to try and raid the ants savings.

Be afraid, be very afraid. The Clintoons considered snatching all IRAs and 401Ks and rolling them into the SS funds.........

[Froufrou]

Ohno! We didn't GWB take this bull by the horns when he had the chance?

[Russ]

"...you must continually fight the sun and the salt spray in the air..."

Poor guy, do you need any help with those chores? If you do, you know where to e-mail me...

[Graybeard58]

I don't plan on retiring. Ever. All the retirees I know get bored within a few months and want to go back to work

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Graybeard 58. Now you know one who isn't bored and has no desire to go back to work. I am as busy as I want to be and as lazy as I want to be. To me it's freedom. I retired in Dec. 1999 at age 54.

[JimFreedom]

Thanks! Yes sometimes I want to jump back in the fray and then I get one of THOSE emails from a former colleague and I grab a brew and go look at the ocean! But I still have to take medicine for high blood pressure, LOL!

I was in a very stressful work environment for many years.

[kabar]

Congress needs to lock up Social Security and pay back everything they have taken from the program. This program should sustain itself if they leave it alone. Basically, they have stolen peoples retirement and used it for whatever they wanted to. Pay it back with a huge interest and penalty for using it.

You couldn't be more wrong. The program is unsustainable as now structured. In 1950, there were 16 workers to every retiree, today there are 3.3, and in 2030 there will be 2 workers for every retiree. Almost half of the national debt is comprised of the SS Trust Fund, which is filled with non-market T-bills, which are really unfunded liabillities and not assets.

In order to "pay it back," we would have to borrow the money, which increases the costs of the servicing the national debt, which takes 17 cents of every federal dollar. SS is a pay as you go system and should be made a regular part of the budget. The SS "surplus" starts declining in 2008 and will go in the red in 2017. The only real long term solution is private accounts.

[Red Badger]

Are you married?......

[Doghouse Riley]

In other comments, Bernanke observed that rain is wet and that bears have been known to s**t in the woods.

"Golly, who woulda thunk it?" he observed.

[JimFreedom]

Outstanding! JimFreedom Oct 2001 at age 52. FREEDOM! (think Braveheart, LOL)

[Peach]

Same here, Graybeard. My husband retired at 54, worked one more year under a special contract and then I retired with him at age 41. It's been 9 years and I'm not bored yet. What am I doing wrong? LOL

[television is just wrong]

I've stayed at home raising my kids. Going back to work, I plan on working for as long as I can. I have many fries who can't wait to retire. My inlaws who retired 15 years ago, have NO schedule, sleep in all day are up all night and have no goals in their life.

I do not want this for myself. I want to remain productive for as long as I can. So looking forward to re-entering the workforce.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

This shouldn't be an issue with 20-30 million folks from the deep, deep south coming to the rescue.

[Graybeard58]

I am happily married, my wife still works by her own choice. Her job involves a lot of travel and I go where she goes when I want to and stay at home when I want to.

I'm not trying to sell anyone on retirement it does work for some however.

Some retirees are just as you described, I have friends who retired, one of them took a job at a car wash soon after retirement and I know for a fact that it wasn't for the money.Another frind, an avid hunter/fisherman used to spend all his free time hunting or fishing, now all of his tiime is free time, it's hard to ever find him at home.

[Safetgiver]

But, but, I distinctly remember Harry Reid and the Dems say in '06 there was no problem, the fund is sustainable until 2080 and that there was no need for Bush to rile everyone up over a nonproblem. Was I mistaken?

[Froufrou]

The deep south? Mexico, home of all the job-seekers who do the jobs we won't?

[Froufrou]

No, I remember that, too. Reid, indeed!

[qam1]

Xer Ping

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 are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.

[ExSES]

I don't plan on retiring. Ever. All the retirees I know get bored within a few months and want to go back to work somewhere. Anywhere. Golf and fish and travel are not what everybody thinks they are.......

A good retirement means..., doing what you want to do..., when you want to do it! Unless someone has an all-consuming hobby or personal pursuit (VERY difficult to do if it doesn't already exist), a balance of reduced work schedule and other activities is the ideal. I've known many people who, having retired, have no idea of what to do AND..., if they don't go back to work or develop an all consuming hobby..., they just DIE!

No matter what you think you would really "Love to do" in retirement (regardless of your economic status), reality will set in in short order!

[buffyt]

If they would have done the SS program like FDR had planned it in the first place, it was supposed to be privatized. But once Congress got their grimy little hands on it, it got wasted.