Hate to break it to you...
http://www.amazon.com/Million-Is-Not-Enough-Retire/dp/0446582239
Posted on 04/16/2012 3:15:52 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
As kids, they sat on gas lines in the backs of their parents’ cars. As young adults, they saw the stock market crash, and when it finally came time to settle down, they bought a house at the peak of the housing bubble and then were faced with the worst economy since the Great Depression. It’s no shock that Generation X — those born from 1965 to 1981 — may get short changed in their golden years.
Though they’ve watched parents and grandparents nestled with pensions, Social Security and strong economic growth, these are no longer guarantees. On the other hand, longer life spans with more medical bills and greater need for cash are the reality for many.
Gen X is the first generation to deal with the fact that the models of American retirement are changing — and its members are flustered. The generation once called “slackers” has been true to form with retirement planning.
“Gen X is a transition generation,” says Carol O’Rourke, a certified financial planner and Executive Director for the Coalition for Debtor Education in New York City. “Gen Xers were young during the tech bubble, and when they came of age, housing was a lot more expensive. With all the talk about whether Social Security is going to survive, there is a sense of not having something to look forward to.”
According to a 2012 Insured Retirement Institute , IRI, report, only one-third of Gen Xers are "very confident" about having enough money to live comfortably during retirement, cover their medical expenses, and pay for their children’s higher education.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I saw some polling a while back that showed people in their 30s (born in the 1970s) and their teens were more conservative than people in their 20s and 40s. I started wondering if which party was in the presidency during your formative years influences where your political leanings go. It's probably hard to hate the president when you're that age, since you don't understand the issues or the attacks against them, and the president just seems like a father figure that you bond with. So people growing up in the '70s and '90s favor Democrats, while those growing up in the '80s and 2000s favor Republicans. Not by a wide margin or anything, but it seems to be a factor.
Not a big enough factor it seems.
Hate to break it to you...
http://www.amazon.com/Million-Is-Not-Enough-Retire/dp/0446582239
I’m 35 and big-time libertarian on economics. I could listen to Stossel talk about the economy, capitalism and failed government boondoggles all day. Not libertarian though on the military or on social/cultural issues. The notion that sound economic policy can exist without a strong sense of morality is ludicrous. There’s a reason that communism depends on a godless society. It’s the unprincipled, immoral culture of selfishness and hedonism that creates citizens who don’t want to work and think they’re entitled to suck off the public teat. Vices come naturally. Virtues must be taught. But they’re not covered by the three “R”s, reading, writing and arithmetic. To learn those you need the fourth “R”, religion.
As Newt and Santorum said, when our rights are said to be based on what the state provides rather than God-given, then the state can take them away anytime they want. The separation of church and state is freedom. The separation of God and state is tyranny.
As for military matters, I don’t there are any easy answers or platitudes on how you deal with foreign powers, some who are vulnerable and need our help and others who threaten us and other states. Military matters need to be the most pragmatic decisions we make. Applying any sort of strongly defined philosophy or dogma to them is unproductive if not counterproductive.
>>an example....my son in his mid 30’s is working a call center job for small pay,while attending night school to earn his computer programming masters....my dil graduated with with a BA,had a baby, then went back to get her masters in library science...then another kid...
suffice to say, they bought at the top of the housing market, have had to replace deck, furnace, roof,fridge plus other stuff....<<
Could these perhaps be a series of extremely bad life decisions? I have been DESPERATELY looking for 30-somethings who can think for themselves and make at least decent decisions in uncertain predicaments — or to at least see they are in a predicament and call for help. The cutoff seems about 40 YO. Younger than that they can’t seem to see the desert for the sand. If I could find them, I would hire them in a second.
I started doing this kind of analysis when I was in my young 20’s — I learned and moved on and learned some more. For some reason, today’s 30s seem to think their crap indoctrination/education has heft. Thus, I keep them updating spreadsheets and project plan target dates in the hopes they might someday understand why what they are doing is important and how it fits in the larger scheme of things.
These X Gen kids (and don’t get me started on the Millenials) seem to confuse that when they are given a hammer and a nail that it somehow actually builds a structure.
I try to help them along as a mentor but frequently I can see the “helicopter parent” happening — the complete inability to think and actually do something without any safety nets.
I would say the current crop of 30 YOs is the same as 20 YOs a few decades ago. The Y-Gens seem to have a better grasp on reality, despite squandering their best learning years.
>>they don’t have two sticks to rub together let alone retirement savings...<<
of course they don’t. They expect OTHERS to take care of them. This is what we have produced. I have a nephew who insists we the taxpayers pay for his college loans. I told him he can have it after they retroactively pay for mine. It sort of shuts him up.
>>I’ve urged one of them to go into govt work just for the health insurance and retirement....<<
Are you on the right board? DU is 2 clicks to the left, KOS, 3 clicks, Huffpo, 5 clicks.
>>No one had given her the advice to pick a job she liked and was good at, instead of studying what she “loved” and expecting to get paid well for it.<<
It is no joke that if you work at what you love you will never work a day in your life.
I just am finishing some, well let us say under-likeable things I need to do. But the creative juices flow, the idea that people will be working from what I have done, the idea I have placed my imprimatur on what I have done is enough to overcome what is, at 1 AM, pretty much exhaustion.
But tomorrow I CODE!!!!! (I hope)
You’re welcome.
>>I was born in 1956. My “kids” are still at home<<
You do them no kindness by infantilizing them. Did your parents keep you sucking their teats until you were a grown person — wearing diapers?
God, if I was in my mommy and daddy’s home after I was 18 I would have shot myself in the head from sheer embarrassment alone.
Buy a set of diapers, give it to your kids, and tell them to live their own lives.
>>Thank God for my federal pension.<<
Until the Conservative Revolution.
Then, you may have to fend for yourself like real people do.
I have a Cal State pension — all I ask from it is to give me my contributions back for those 15 years, with a reasonable ROI (say, 6%). We all walk away happy — no eternal burden to the taxpayers, I get my stolen money back, and I work those dollars with the risk profile I deem best.
That's true. Problem is some of us boomers are lumped in with the OLDER boomers who were flower children or Vietnam war protesters. We don't fit in with those boomers born between 1946-1953.
We are Generation JONES. Most of us are at least 10 years, minimum, from retirement.
And that kind of abuse is limited / unique to Gen Y? What color is the sky in your world?
Well, there are few penalties for not being responsible. The government ensures everyone has enough to get by - not much, but then most irresponsible people have very low expectations anyway. OTOH all you get from being responsible is an IRS agent taking more of it away.
When the passions are obscure liberal arts, music and philosophy, getting a degree in those areas is a deep load of dumb debt.
Your barber is right - a million & no mortgage debt to retire (we aren’t there yet, but that is the goal).
For us, it made sense to refinance to a 10 yr mortgage (it’s not that much more a month, but the house will be paid off alot quicker).
No matter the plans made or what is set aside retirement is only possible if there are enough young people working to produce enough goods and services to meet basic necessities of life for those who are retired, if you think about it you will realize this is not opinion, it is mathematical certainty. Imagine yourself the only person on Earth, you would own everything by default but you could not get a ham sandwich without producing it yourself. What we have is a lower and lower ratio of young people of working age to retirees coupled with an ever larger percentage of young people who are leaches rather than producers. The situation is mathematically impossible. I am about to turn 68 and I work two part time jobs right now. I try to learn all I can about how to stay physically able, once I lose my physical competence the best I can hope for is a swift death. The idea of being a nursing home patient makes me want to jump off a cliff.
Yeah, buddy.
Not for those that chose to “live like no one else.”
Keep up the pace my fellow DR FRiends. It will be worth it!
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Not for those that chose to “live like no one else.”
Keep up the pace my fellow DR FRiends. It will be worth it!
Dave Ramsey Fan Ping List.
If you would like to be added to the “Live like no one else, so that you can LIVE like no one else” list, feel free to Freepmail me.
I’d like to be on the list.
If we keep going down this road it will be the death of the economy.
People will come to the conclusion that its time to move or stop producing.
This thought never occurs to the Liberal brain. They think the money tree will never run out.
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