[Heineken]

Tell me about it, Vision. My dad had it all his life, and it damaged my family in turn.

[JustaGirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'T')here will be a Mass Suicide of all remaining people on Earth on Dec 21st, 2012.

Reverse Engineer

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', 'a')nd what is going to happen to people who need this level of care when the SHTF?

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustaGirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'T')here will be a Mass Suicide of all remaining people on Earth on Dec 21st, 2012.

Reverse Engineer

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

How could they get away with saying PTSD is not real??? Is this another of those weird American things like bush declaring an end to hostilities so they didn't have to pay danger pay?

And no, I didn't think of classes of people like war vets in my numbers. Out of sight, out of mind you could say. Lots of vets in my family, but luckily no one is disabled... at least not to the extent we were talking about in this thread. All 4 of my uncles came back whole (physically) from Vietnam.

[MonteQuest]

Many senior citizens, who thought they were set for life just six months ago, now face the prospect of going back to work, perhaps until they no longer can. And these are the folks who did everything they were supposed to do—not poor planners. They looked forward to that day when they could bid the world of work a fond farewell and ride off into the sunset of their golden years, rather than awake to find the wolf at the door

Here’s a classic example: Imagine that you're 65 and you had saved $200,000 for your retirement when you were 50. You watched your money grow at an average annual rate of 10% (the stock market's average return on investment), netting you a cool $1 million. This was supposed to give you $40,000 a year to live on if you pulled out 4% each year. But, still not that much money, right? Social Security helped, and so did that job at Walmart. You were getting by. Besides, your house was paid for and it had gone up $150,000 in value. We good, so far?

Then the real estate crash, followed by the stock market implosion, changes all of that almost overnight. I read a story recently about a man who bought a new, three-bedroom $200,000 home in Maricopa, Arizona, in October 2005. He made a 35% down payment on his house and got a 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage at 5.75%. Today, the home is worth $80,000. His $70,000 down payment is now worthless. This is an example of how even a cautious borrower can be hurt by a price collapse.

Now, his story is an extreme example, but, so far, home values nationally have tumbled an average of 19% from their peak. As bad as that sounds, prices would need to fall at least 17% more to reach their traditional relationship to household income. If we have another 20% decline in real estate prices, we'll need another bailout of the banks similar to what we just tossed into the gaping hungry maw of insolvent financial institutions. And if you don’t think that scenario is coming, look at this chart:



Do you see the next tsunami wave of foreclosures over the next four years? And to make matters worse, an third wave of commercial mortgage foreclosures is just waiting in the wings. Commercial mortgages are usually written for five, seven or 10 years with big payments due at the end.

According to Peter Schiff, president of investment firm Euro Pacific Capital of Darien, Conn, “We will never see these prices again in our lifetime, when you adjust for inflation. These were lifetime peaks." "That's the nature of bubbles," Schiff says. "The price never comes back."

The price correction will probably be permanent for other reasons as well. Lending standards have changed insuring that the hoards of unqualified buyers that drove the prices up will never return. In fact, in efforts to get around these new rules, 45% of all new mortgage applications have resulted in fraud, with 65% of them involving lies about their income and actual names. The Great Depression of the 1930’s was preceded by a real estate bubble, also fueled by loose lending standards and shrinking down payment requirements.

The one thing I can assure you with with great certitude, is that the pablum being fed to the public, via the clueless pundits like Larry Kudlow of MSNBC, is nothing even remotely close to where we really are.

Oh, by the way...hi guys and gals!

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Oh, by the way...hi guys and gals!

[Cloud9]

Nonte, where did this graph come from? I have seen it a couple of times before.

[Cloud9]

Sorry Monte, I should never type when I am toasted.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'N')onte, where did this graph come from?

[kpeavey]

Good to have you back, along with your research and insight.

[RedStateGreen]

Welcome back

[cipi604]

MonteQuest , I have spent a lot of time reading your posts in the past. I've learned so much from you.
Thank you, and ...
Welcome back.

[yeahbut]

Well I'll be...there's gonna be a few people fact-checking a bit harder before they post around here(myself included!) welcome back Monte.

[ReverseEngineer]

I think this thread could be merged with The End of Retirement thread.

http://peakoil.com/fortopic48449.html+end+retirement

Reverse Engineer

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '
')
Where are the unretired going to find jobs then?

[Byron100]

I agree, exactly where are the jobs going to come from when the oldsters seek to go back to work? Who's going to be generous enough to hire them, not to mention making it easy enough to make it through an 8-hour work day? Heck, I'm only 42, and I'm pretty much unemployable due to my spotty work history...nobody wants to hire a wreck like me. So those 70-somethings sure are heck not going to be able to waltz back into the workplace after a decade or more of being retired - the people that do the hiring just aren't that kind.

The truth of the matter, when it all comes down, there's no choice left but to take wealth from those who have it and give it to those who don't. Otherwise we burn. Plain and simple.

Equalization of wealth is the ONLY way out of this, and it still ain't gonna be pretty (except for the sweet sound of squealing pigs, that is...LOL).

[retiredguy]

Getting back into the workforce isn't necessarily a problem if one has a skill/knowledge for which there is a market.

I'm pretty sure I could land a job in IT in a couple of months. A friend of mine retired from the medical profession and is going back to work part time. All he had to do was let it be known that he was interested in going back to work.

[Gorm]

And a lot of those in the 70´s have the skills that are desired and the capacity to preform them? I think not.

[retiredguy]

Of course. I've had a number of people, who made no preparation for retirement, tell me that they will work until they die. That's completely delusional.

But there are still old guys like me who know COBOL and BAL and there are millions and millions of lines of that code still doing productive work every day. Until my brain starts dribbling out of my nose, I can still throw code.