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Tell that the young slackers I read on other forums who want to retire in their 30s and 40s.
I think we will be seeing more of this. We just don't have enough GOOD jobs to keep people motivated to work. If there is no real reward for continuing to work many will eventually check out and turn to alternate lifestyles. Learn to live on less and barter and trade to live. If you can't realistically achieve the American Dream, why keep busting your butt for no returns?
I am not saying this is a good thing, just what I think we will see in the future.
I think I will be healthier when I am done sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day and am up moving around and doing things around the house that I don't have time for now - cleaning, painting, organizing, downsizing, rearranging, pruning, etc. After 8 hours at a desk, I frankly am lethargic, tired, and have no energy to do those things. Inertia - an object at rest stays at rest.
I hear that! In Oregon the Public Employee Retirement System is highly controversial, even though it's one of the better public pensions in the US. Retirees get called "greedy" even though we had no control over the pension system. We've learned to be pretty quiet about our finances.
I get tired of hearing how lazy and greedy state workers are. As with any business, you have good and not so good employees. In the 30+ years I worked for the state, I found most of my co-workers were highly dedicated and cared a great deal about providing the best service they could.
Thank you for your service Mightyqueen801 and, enjoy your retirement!
Thank you! I worked with some great people, too. And thanks for yours! I always wanted to visit Oregon--my late Dad was stationed there in WWII before he went overseas and he loved it. He talked often about wanting to go back, and my mother kept saying, "Why would you want to go there? It doesn't sound that great to me." Then his unit had a 50-year reunion there, so he and my mother went. And SHE loved it, lol.
Lazy? In the month of June, 2014, I had three days off--three Saturdays. Worked every one of the other days in that month, most of them at least 12 hours. We were in the middle of a project that was being accelerated because the governor wanted it to be able to claim it as an accomplishment at election time. That was not the norm all the time, of course, but I was salaried, not in a union, and so there was no extra compensation. I didn't even get a thanks from my boss. It was expected.
Which is another fun part of public service--you do all the work, somebody else gets the credit.
But I stayed for 37 years, and I should get my first pension check in April.
I think I will be healthier when I am done sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day and am up moving around and doing things around the house that I don't have time for now - cleaning, painting, organizing, downsizing, rearranging, pruning, etc. After 8 hours at a desk, I frankly am lethargic, tired, and have no energy to do those things. Inertia - an object at rest stays at rest.
You WILL be! I have been home for almost four weeks. I am exercising and talking walks on nice days, doing the treadmill or elliptical on not-nice days, four or five days a week.
It's also a difference being able to sleep until you are slept out. I get up at 7, but when I worked, the alarm went off at 5:15. You also get to decide how you will spend your time.
I have heaps of clothing all around because I'm emptying a dresser and closet to paint my room and I want to sort my clothes to keep/give away/toss. My neighbor stopped over, though, with her daughter and the Girl Scout cookies I ordered, and then I went outside to chat with her and another neighbor was out there, and it was a nice day, and then someone else we knew was driving by and she stopped, too...
SO I have heaps of clothing all around. But there's tomorrow!
The libertarian Cato Institute recently flagged a paper published as part of the International Social Security Project by the National Bureau of Economic Research which tried to quantify just how much unused “work capacity†there is among retired Americans. Researchers determined that about 28 percent of Americans between the ages of 55 and 69 are healthy enough to be working but are not.
I think I will be healthier when I am done sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day and am up moving around and doing things around the house that I don't have time for now - cleaning, painting, organizing, downsizing, rearranging, pruning, etc. After 8 hours at a desk, I frankly am lethargic, tired, and have no energy to do those things. Inertia - an object at rest stays at rest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
You WILL be! I have been home for almost four weeks. I am exercising and talking walks on nice days, doing the treadmill or elliptical on not-nice days, four or five days a week.
It's also a difference being able to sleep until you are slept out. I get up at 7, but when I worked, the alarm went off at 5:15. You also get to decide how you will spend your time.
Have to totally agree. Sleep till 7 every morning. Not tired five days a week
And I feel much healthier. And have the energy to do stuff during the "workweek".
YOU should work until YOU drop. My ability to take a pension started at age 58. if I'd lasted until 70, my pension could have been the same as my salary(death statistics and all that). I took retirement when I could also get social security.
My goal is to be retired for longer than I worked, which is going to be kinda hard since I worked for 40 years. I'll have to live to 102. 35 years to go!
I wonder if Cato realizes that a lot of that 28 percent WOULD be working if they could find jobs worthy of their talents
.
Assuming they want or need to work. I am able to work, but as a retiree, have zero need or desire to do so. It is my life and I reserve the right to live it as I see fit.
This ridiculous notion implies that just because someone ceases paid work for someone else, that their value to society in other ways doesn't matter. What about the increased contributions to society via volunteering, taking more time out for their neighbors and slowing down to smile or offer a kind word to the person who is harried and still in the rat race, or just being a better family member of friend? These all have value, and in many cases a value greater than being a paid employee, or at least contributing a different kind of value to society that's also sorely needed.
If someone wants to and is able to work until their in their 70's, 80's or beyond, then that's great for them. If someone is extremely frugal and talented enough that they're able to retire younger than the traditional retirement age (and can contribute more to the world in other ways, such as those above), and have funded their own retirement honestly through hard work and having the talent to work in a career that provides enough income to be disciplined and squirrel money away and behave frugally in their early years so they can retire early, that's great for them, too. Neither is necessarily wrong, and if someone is doing this honestly and through hard work and careful planning, it's no one else's prerogative. Either is a legitimate, personal choice.
It's also kind of ironic (but not really surprising) that the "Cato Institute" would push such a mindset, given they use the slogan "Individual Liberty" as part of their mantra , but they are displaying their true intentions are aligned with plutocrats, rather than actually promoting personal freedoms and the ability of someone to shape their own destiny.
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, but they are displaying their true intentions are aligned with plutocrats, rather than actually promoting personal freedoms and the ability of someone to shape their own destiny.
