[Kristen]

mandatory euthanasia at 65?

I hope not. At 23 the concept of a retirement is as real as the tooth fairy. I imagine it was the same for those who are close to retiring now.

[idiom]

Mandatory Euthanasia at 30 when your palmstone turns white.

No running now Logan.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('idiom', 'M')andatory Euthanasia at 30 when your palmstone turns white. No running now Logan.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sys1', 'T')his thread really hurts. I think to my parents who will be stucked between bankrupt of retirement and riots in the streets while getting older. My mother has a pacemaker and take medicines everyday. Same for my father... Even my wife need medicines every day (epilepsy) in order to survive, she worries about her shop where people buy less and less. My brother can't get a job... I feel like the only one in good shape and still young even if my mind is upside down thanks to PO.

[retiredebtfree01]

We will agree with your thoughts and your suggestions are nice in your information that you have provided. link

[galacticsurfer]

My mom is 78 and Dad almost 85, one bedridden and the other demented. Lots of pills and 24 hour care. We manage it due to their investments, inheritances. So they cost what we three sons, not very well to do, earn together. Howlong can such BS go on? Old people can drain all savings of kids, any potential inheritance and are just vegetables, bed-ridden? This sort of thing goes no due to modern medicine being so good that they were nto dead 5-10 years ago. I read King Lear a year ago and thought of my Dad, demented, destroying the family with strife through his craziness. Things don't much change. We gotta let go of them and they of us and of their lives.

We gotta get back to mulitgenerational households, maybe one daughter or son (oldest in tradition) takes over the family house and cares for the parents and they watch the grandkids while parents are busy with heavy lifitng in the fields. Read some of Gene Logsdons stuff. Kids can do lots of farmwork. Stand on top of haystacks catching th next load to make it higher, feeding chickens, picking berries, haul water, clean up, slop pigs. Granny knits, granpa fixes fishing nets. Critical knowledge is passed on by the grandparents (fairy tales from grimm, etc. all oral culture) both tchnical and cultural. Nowadays all cutlural, tchnical knowledge is passed on by schools. This will change.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'm')andatory euthanasia at 65? I hope not. At 23 the concept of a retirement is as real as the tooth fairy. I imagine it was the same for those who are close to retiring now.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kpeavey', 'H')ow will GenerationX respond to a failed economy and joblessness, a bank foreclosing on their homes, crushing credit card debt, a collapsing energy infrastructure, dependent children and dependent baby boomer parents?

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'm')andatory euthanasia at 65? I hope not. At 23 the concept of a retirement is as real as the tooth fairy. I imagine it was the same for those who are close to retiring now.

[oiless]

My mother died of cancer at 57.
My father is 77, goes to the gym five days a week and pumps iron. A bit of arthritis, but other than that he's a strong as a young bull and "sharp as a tack", as the old folks say.

[retiredguy]

People DID retire in the Pre-Industrial era. Ever heard of Ben Franklin?

I'm four years into retirement. Best years of my life. My former career was extremely stressful, couldn't continue to do that into old age. That is the delusion under which many members of my generation operate.

I take it one day at a time, enjoying the many small moments I didn't while I was obsessed with working.

With the skills I've acquired since retiring, I believe I can stay alive, at least until my health fails, without needing a "job."

When my health fails, I'm taking the express out of Dodge.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m four years into retirement. Best years of my life. My former career was extremely stressful, couldn't continue to do that into old age. That is the delusion under which many members of my generation operate.

[Heineken]

I second that, Vision Master. I've deteriorated dramatically since hitting 50, three years ago. Turns out that that year had more than merely symbolic meaning. Like you, I was always somewho looked far younger than his age. Well, since 50 the years have been catching up FAST.

The earlier comment by Retired Guy, about the delusion of thinking you can work forever (e.g., to make up for wrecked 401k balances) also rings very true. It depends on the work. Despite all the comments we read about people "loving" their jobs, most work is a grind. Even if you do love it, your love may flag as you get older and more jaded and tired.

[eucalyptus]

I'm retiring in 6 months.

you will too.

[nobodypanic]

let's see... i always thought that when i retired, that meant that, one, i would no longer have to go to work for someone every damn day, and, two, i'd be fishing a lot.

tell me, isn't that exactly what i am looking at, just sooner?

[Byron100]

Know what's really funny? As a modern society, we only really *need* something like 5 or 10% of the population to carry out the necessities of living - farming, securing energy supplies and running the power plants as well as water / sewer, etc. We also need a basic police force, some medical personnel, and teachers for the children, although that's not absolutely necessary if push came to shove. Of course, we need people to build houses, make clothes, etc, etc, but if things really got bad, we could go 10, 15, or even 20 years on our existing stock of stuff without producing / importing anything new. (Just make sure you're stockpiled in lots of underwear - I have a feeling this is an oft-overlooked item in prepping...LOL.)

So, to be conservative, I would say a society could hold together, for some time at least, with 20% of working-age population actually working, while the rest are at idle. But of course, there's the problem of how those people will be able to support themselves - as it would surely be impossible to tax the 20% of workers to support the other 80%. So what gives? Let everyone who doesn't work starve? That clearly won't happen without a fight - America will burn long before we see mass starvation.

The only way out of this is to keep most people employed, as well as keeping the income flowing to the retired population. Since the survival of our nation is at sake here, you can bet that our government will resort to any and all measures to keep things going - first by spending ourselves into oblivion, and once that train comes to the end of its tracks (possibly very quickly and suddenly in a dollar collapse), then we'll resort to, um, other means of securing the funds needed to keep people working, fed and housed. Ever heard of the term "nuclear diplomacy"? That's when a nation threatens another nation with nuclear warfare in order to get what it wants - an example would be the US threatening to drop a big one on Dubai unless they fork over their trillion$ of accumulated wealth. And so on and so forth.

In any case, this will not end well for the world - but there's really no other course of action. You either let the majority of the people starve to death, or you start flexing some muscle - it's the law of the jungle, and we will see it applied most likely in the relatively near future.

At least there's a very good chance I won't have to worry about growing old...LOL.

[Denny]

My wife went back to teaching, about 12 years ago, and will accumulate a modest indexed pension by age 62.

I wonder if the civil service pensions will be curtailed, or if they can even be legally curtailed, as the civil servants pay into those too under legally stipulated conditions, not just the employer.

But, if we get into hyperinflation, how can these be funded? The teachers' pension fund covers the whole province, it has about 170,000 members, some active, some retired. It has about $110 billion in assets, but those assets have really been hit by the market drop in the past three months, I am sure of that.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'M')y wife went back to teaching, about 12 years ago, and will accumulate a modest indexed pension by age 62.
I wonder if the civil service pensions will be curtailed, or if they can even be legally curtailed, as the civil servants pay into those too under legally stipulated conditions, not just the employer.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'M')y wife went back to teaching, about 12 years ago, and will accumulate a modest indexed pension by age 62.
I wonder if the civil service pensions will be curtailed, or if they can even be legally curtailed, as the civil servants pay into those too under legally stipulated conditions, not just the employer.
But, if we get into hyperinflation, how can these be funded? The teachers' pension fund covers the whole province, it has about 170,000 members, some active, some retired. It has about $110 billion in assets, but those assets have really been hit by the market drop in the past three months, I am sure of that.

[retiredguy]

Byron100,
I would estimate that in my old organization about 25% of the employee were pure dead weight. Their positions could be eliminated with no effect to the organization. However, managers like numbers...

Heinken,
Dead on about turning 50. I felt different that very day. Each year after that I've noticed a decline in my energy level and I am a VERY active person. Some days I have to force myself to do things.

I've seen my share of nursing homes over the past ten years and don't plan to end my life in one of them. Sort of like waiting for a bus you never want to arrive in a Greyhound station.

That is no way to stay alive.