LA Times article-The Nest Egg Myth-Boomers face retirement with LESS money

[old mark]

than their parents due to the real estate collapse and financial crash of '08...and now they want to cut our Social Security and Medicare!

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/20/opinion/la-oe-jacoby-aging-boomers-20110220

Those at the lower end of the income scare have NO savings, and counted on their homes as their largest source of retirement capital...but thanks to the financial crimes against the US people, many homes are worth much less than they cost, and those fortunate enough to have retirement investments have seen then cut drastically...
Average retirement savings are now $45,000.

And the politicians who make more money than the huge majority of Americans want to cut everything they possibly can out from under us greedy old people...


mark

[patrice]

1. '08?, yes, but I first lost money in 1986, then started seeing it seriously losing in 2000 on a

yearly basis, culminating in 2008.

And I'm not rich. REALLY, just average Middle Class.

[SoCalDem]

3. We all got our wings clipped ..decades ago

It takes stable times to save.. If every small raise is overcome by wildly escalating costs, we all engage in treading water, and not swimming..let alone floating.

MOST boomers never had any long stretch of "serenity", when they could even save.

The only hope that many boomers ever had was that they might inherit something from their parents or maybe win the lottery, or sell that house & downsize with the cash they might make..

Their parents lived "too long", and there were often too many siblings for one part of that plan...lotto doesn't usually pan out either..and now those houses are not worth the gunpowder to blow them up. :)

[dkf]

2. Were they planning to sell their house or reverse mortgage?

That doesn't seem like a good plan to me.

[old mark]

4. Neither is a great idea, but evidently it is all some people are left with...

that or working till the are 80 or so....

mark

[jtuck004]

6. Or not working. There are millions now in the 45-62 years

(of the 27 million or so underemployed) who have worked the last job they will ever get, some with a little part-time for food or rent. That's it, until they can take a portion of their SSI at 62.

Over 1/3 now retire with nothing but SSI, because the income disparity has been going on for so long.

Tough to save when you don't have any disposable income.

[old mark]

8. Yes. the people over 50 who have an actual job are the lucky ones.

I am sure many of those unemployed-even those in their 40's-will never find work in their field again.


mark

[jtuck004]

10. Or in any field for that matter.We have now engineered ourselves

into an amazing position, where there is 1 job for every 6 people, and that is only if the job isn't yet or can't be offshored, in which case there are a dozen places to compete with.

And there is nothing on the horizon that will change that.

[old mark]

5. What really makes me mad is that EVERYONE in the MSM has had articles

on the coming retirement of the boomers and how the government should prepare for it...for maybe 20 years at least...
Now the government acts like this is all a surprise?

What kind of dumbasses or crooks have we been electing all these years?
I am sure not one of them has left government service a poorer person than when they started...and now it is our fault because we haven't enough money to live on...


mark
Retired AFSCME Steward

[dkf]

7. What really gets me is that they built up a surplus with the SS $ but screwed up the finances so bad

That they made it pretty much impossible for the general fund to pay back SS.

George W. Bush bankrupted this country with his stupid tax cuts. He needs to go down in history as the moron who did this to us.

[old mark]

9. He should be in prison, along with many of his "advisors"....nt