>>As kids, they sat on gas lines in the backs of their parents’ cars.<<
Sorry for the slight thread drift, but my dad owned a gas station in those days and, as a youth, it was my lucky job to put the “last car” sign onto the last car we could take when we were about to run out of gas.
I also got to ask people to let me see their gas gauges to make sure they were below 1/2.
As for the point of the article, I’ll be working to 70 or 75, even with as good planning as I can do.
One last note: Anyone born after 1955 or so who thinks he/she will ever see a dime of SS is delusional. SS is a big zero in my retirement planning, assuming I live after I retire. My wife, OTOH, is unbelievably healthy, has great health habits and comes from a long-lived line. I am really planning for HER.
The 'In Debt We Trust' crowd waves as it ages away..
And the newest generation is worse.
Hubs & I have the 401k thingy going.
Excess disposable income goes toward freeze-drieds, heirloom seeds, ammo & other preps.
We trust, but verify (by making sure we can care for our damn selves.
This Gen Xer has no worries....Gen Y is the Occupy Asswipe group that needs a “talking to”.
>> The ‘In Debt We Trust’ crowd waves as it ages away..
I’m a boomer. I have no debt. I actually *enjoy* working (and it’s a good thing I do).
I do feel sympathy for the X-ers, but only a little. Many of them have expectations that far outstrip their abilities and work ethic.
The generations after X are *worse* in that regard. That’s a generalization of course, and there are many exceptions.
“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,”
With inflation the way it is, and interest rates down to zero, saving money isn’t exactly worthwhile. I figured I’d just spend it all on guns and ammo now and wait for the country to collapse.
Cry me a river.
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.
After Obama, Generations A through Z can kiss retirement good bye.
Thank God for my federal pension.
What are you talking about Gen X? Some of us Boomers are not retiring either.
Well we have to pay for our parents cushy retirements.
And if we cared, we’d stop voting for big spending liberal Democrats.
First step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one and Gen X is in serious denial.
I was born in 60 I don’t see me being able to retire at all
I don’t care if a Red diaper doper babyboomer named Barack Obama takes early retirement, but I surely want to see him FIRED from office this November.
I have a strong feeling that the generation X’ers have seen this coming from so far away that they adapt to changing circumstances.
To start with, the baby boomers got suckered into believing that they would get out of LBJ’s “Great Society” what they paid into it, or at least those who followed them would do what the boomers did, which would support the boomers.
However, as soon as the government got their money, it not only spent it on other things, but spent even more, going into debt.
So truthfully, the cupboard has long been bare, or rather, filled to overflowing with IOUs. But government was even sneakier and greedier. So for many years now, the generation X’ers don’t even get started without huge debts, the government exploiting them first.
So the generation X’ers will be lucky to just feed themselves, much less pay retirement luxury for the boomers. And the instant the “float” money runs out, and it will, it’s going to be “sorry boomers, but nobody is going to give you a dime.”
And boomers will stomp their aged feet and curse, but that is not going to get blood from a turnip. Meanwhile, the generation X’ers will be quietly building up their own, *non-monetary* semi-retirement.
Carefully squirreling away what the government would take if it could. And while they won’t have a luxurious retirement, they calculate they won’t have to work, either, mostly because they know their isn’t going to be any work for them anyway.
The government figures it will get out of this by offering easy suicide to the boomers, figuring that since they’ve already been fooled several times, might as well fool them out of the picture entirely.
Well, as one of the more responsible members of this generation (born 1978), let me take a little exception to your statement. The article points out rightly that quite a few of the factors that have screwed Gen Xers over are completely outside of our control. It’s easy to blame people for running up credit card debt, buying houses they can’t afford, not saving, etc, but even people in this generation who avoided all of that, like myself, are still probably never going to be able to retire in any kind of comfort. It doesn’t matter how you run the numbers, most people living nowadays are going to have a standard of living lower than their parents, and it doesn’t look like that will improve anytime soon.
I’m Gen-X, and I plan on going out the way my Revolutionary War ancestors did: with a rifle in my hand.
bump
Gen X’ers are probably coming to the conclusion that there end will come pop pain pills for an untreated treatable illness, even if they have the funds for treatment or taking the state funded death injection.
How much sympathy will they have for later baby boomers?
Sorry, enjoy it while it lasts.
I’m Gen X and am more libertarian than ever. I hate the ponzi scam the boomers, the “greatest generation” et sl have forced on us.