Boehner, "Raise SS age to 70"

[Andy A]

Everyone does and in the time frame promised. Football comes to mind, you see the goal, you have your play, you're physically and mentally tired and all you wish to do is rest yet every time you get near the goal it moves back ten yards and you wonder if you will survive long enough to reach it.

Some do and others will. It is a known, but often ignored fact, that if you wish to retire, comfortably, you must do serious planning toward that goal. I, and many others did, and now some expect us to give up what we spent most of our lives planning. I don't think so. The goal is still attainable. Some may have to change their strategy as to how to get there.

 

[poppy]

Some do and others will. It is a known, but often ignored fact, that if you wish to retire, comfortably, you must do serious planning toward that goal. I, and many others did, and now some expect us to give up what we spent most of our lives planning. I don't think so. The goal is still attainable. Some may have to change their strategy as to how to get there.

The lowest paying jobs are usually the most physically demanding. Planning ahead for many of these people is having food on the table, a roof overhead and staying healthy so they can work and possibly pick up a few hours overtime. Planning a retirement strategy is not a realistic option for many. Expecting timely receipt of the small stipend promised through the payroll tax they have been paying all their working life is not asking you to give up anything.
(unless your plan was for them to die early.)

 

[goofer]

"In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.....this is the real issue. everyone is fighting over the ever shrinking crumbs.

I do not get your point. If I have gotten a good education, worked hard, been lucky by being in the right spot at the right time and had the sense to grab the oppurtunities, what is wrong with that ?? Isn't that the American Dream ??

 

[LuciferSam]

I do not get your point. If I have gotten a good education, worked hard, been lucky by being in the right spot at the right time and had the sense to grab the oppurtunities, what is wrong with that ?? Isn't that the American Dream ??

I agree with most everything you said except maybe I think the whole idea of the American Dream is some worn out cliche.

 

[Yzarctoo]

The lowest paying jobs are usually the most physically demanding. Planning ahead for many of these people is having food on the table, a roof overhead and staying healthy so they can work and possibly pick up a few hours overtime. Planning a retirement strategy is not a realistic option for many. Expecting timely receipt of the small stipend promised through the payroll tax they have been paying all their working life is not asking you to give up anything.
(unless your plan was for them to die early.)

..... no one can expect to survive only on their SS check! It wasn't designed to live on...it was to supplement you....you have to plan for retirement...a little socked away each month will make a difference over time.

 

[poppy]

..... no one can expect to survive only on their SS check! It wasn't designed to live on...it was to supplement you....you have to plan for retirement...a little socked away each month will make a difference over time.

The stock portfolios of the working poor have been hit pretty hard lately by the economy.

 

[scooterbug44]

The fact that the "working poor" have stock portfolios says quite a bit about just how cliched the American Dream is. :roll:

The whole idea of Social Security is that everyone can have a certain minimum standard of living even if they have done nothing to save for their retirement.

And that minimal payment - even if it gets reduced - still makes them "wealthy" in the eyes of 95% of the planet.

 

[Andy A]

Poppy, I couldn't disagree with you more throughly. The American public has never been prone to save or plan for retirement, as a whole. My wise, but uneducated father, taught me the value and necessity of saving and financial planning at the ripe old age of 11. That's when I started cutting lawns and by 13, I was checking in a Safeway store. One of the biggest mistakes we ever made in this country was the "child labor laws". We negated teaching our youth how to work and how to save. I hated what my father did at the time. I have revered him ever since I turned 20.
Please spare us the idea that people who don't make a lot of money cannot plan and save for retirement. I never made a salary of more than $22,000 a year in my life. I now manage to do quite well. In my mind, it is attitudes such as yours, that to a great degree, have our nation in the financial peril it is in, as far as the support of our citizens of retirement age is concerned. We do not educate our youth about the value, use and requirement in future years, of money.

 

[futurebeachbum]

The American public has never been prone to save or plan for retirement, as a whole. .

That's really a recent development. According to this Federal Reserve document Savings Rates were as high as 14% as recently as the 1970's. Rates were climbing in the 60's, peaked in the 70's (as we came out of a recession) and began a decline that has continued ever since.

Interestingly enough, the last time savings rates went negative was during the Great Depression.

The government has built a system that seriously discourages people from saving. You pay taxes on the money you save, but you get to deduct from your income for some of the money you spend. The system is designed with incentives to spend and penalties for savings.

 

[30ashopper]

That's really a recent development. According to this Federal Reserve document Savings Rates were as high as 14% as recently as the 1970's. Rates were climbing in the 60's, peaked in the 70's (as we came out of a recession) and began a decline that has continued ever since.

Interestingly enough, the last time savings rates went negative was during the Great Depression.

The government has built a system that seriously discourages people from saving. You pay taxes on the money you save, but you get to deduct from your income for some of the money you spend. The system is designed with incentives to spend and penalties for savings.

Such a strange graph.. we eliminated a whole set of deductible loans in 86, including credit card debt. I've never been able to put my finger on what exactly changed in the attitudes of Americans in the mid-80s. Rising tide of consumerism maybe with a move toward a more capitalist system? Some sort of credit card or loan legislation maybe?