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You can forget an economic miracle. We will be real lucky if we do not default on our debt over the next 20 years. See we may come up with the next big thing in the US. And 2 days later they will send the whole thing overseas. Have workers in India and China do the work for 20% of the cost of the US. If they need workers in the US hire part time temps or contractors no health benefits. It is the way of the future.
This is probably not going to last much longer. If you look at Reagan's first term, his poll #s were in the dumps also due to the economy, in his 2nd yr in office. But then the economy turned around and we all know what happened--the economic miracle.
Reagan had the benefit of all of the boomers just starting their family formations by 1983. When 70 million people started having kids and raising families you have a strong economy. Now that same demographic bubble is downsizing and spending less, don't look for a miracle.
I understand working later if you have to whether full or part time, I will probably end up in that boat myself. But I think people who continue to work for a paycheck that don't need to ought try staying useful with volunteer work. Not trying to judge, but if people don't move out of the job market that can, doesn't leave much room for young people.
Most boomers will not be able to retire, that's a fact. It is ironic though that they lived thru years of the best opportunities to acquire wealth mankind has ever seen.
The problems they face now are compounded. The assets that make up the majority of their wealth, mainly real estate and equities will continue to deteriorate in value for at least another 5 years. They will loose at least a decade of compounding, resulting in their investments loosing about half of what they would have grown to under normal economic times. Their costs of living will increase dramatically as Federal, State, and Local governments begin to nickel and dime every aspect of their lives to deal with their own financial problems. Unemployment will remain high, and outsourcing will continue, putting downward pressure on wages. The dollar will weaken as Federal deficit spending continues, and the country refuses to adopt the austerity measures being seen in Europe. Add to the mix a deteriorating infrastructure that will adversely affect productivity and you have a situation that is insurmountable. After they loose their current jobs to younger more productive workers, the boomers future for the most part will be sporting spiffy paper hats, and asking customers if they would like fries with that order. But they did have their chance, too bad they squandered it.
I understand working later if you have to whether full or part time, I will probably end up in that boat myself. But I think people who continue to work for a paycheck that don't need to ought try staying useful with volunteer work. Not trying to judge, but if people don't move out of the job market that can, doesn't leave much room for young people.
I don't agree with that line of thinking. This assumes the economy is a fixed pie that never grows. In reality, the job market is adding and subtracting jobs all the time.
In fact, there may be some people doing jobs who wouldn't easily be replaced by a young person. I especially think of business owners and the like.
IMO, what we need to do is implement some structural reforms instead of just printing money. Getting health care costs down would help a lot with that because right now it's busting the budgets of the government and average folks alike.
It would help if we started moving away from eating the processed foods that lead to obesity.
Most boomers will not be able to retire, that's a fact. It is ironic though that they lived thru years of the best opportunities to acquire wealth mankind has ever seen...........But they did have their chance, too bad they squandered it.
That's what I'm thinking. That's where the "live for today" philosophy embraced by many Boomers gets you. It's just taken 40 years for us to see how bankrupt that philosophy is (morally and financially).
Math, mutual funds are often comprised of stocks which can be risky principal investments for fixed income retirees. Take a look at Japan's stock market index over the last 25 years. It has lost 70% of its value since the peak in 1989 to today. I don't have time to elaborate on parallels and differences in Japanese and current US fiscal policy.
If you feel comfortable, so be it. I was trying to explain a Boomer's reasoning for working longer than expected in response to the original post.
But the biggest reason is that many Boomers just never saved anywhere close to enough in the first place.
This is probably not going to last much longer. If you look at Reagan's first term, his poll #s were in the dumps also due to the economy, in his 2nd yr in office. But then the economy turned around and we all know what happened--the economic miracle.
The miracle isn't coming this time. Health care costs are spiraling upward, and the government (that's you and me) just added to the already high costs by phasing in guaranteed health care coverage for everyone.
Add the increasing cost of Social Security and two wars on top of that, and all the extra stimulus spending, plus all the interest payments on the debt, and it's not looking good.
We're out of easy options and not enough people in the government or average citizens are willing to make the hard decisions that would lead to long term prosperity.
That means the miracle isn't coming any time soon.
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