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Anyone who works for a living is naive if they feel satisfied about their financial situation, and I don't just mean those with expensive tastes. Even if you entered the workforce long ago when a technical college degree and good work ethic guaranteed a career, and you did all the right things financially (like get a 15-year mortgage and pay it off as quick with direct payments to principle), it's almost impossible to save enough to have a secure retirement that can weather health care costs and longevity.
Pretty much everything is stacked against the working class today; much more so than at any time in American history. Our Middle Class arose in the industrial boom following WWII, thanks to strict immigration laws that kept the value of labor high. Unfortunately Washington threw open the immigration floodgates in 1965, resulting in the plummeting value of labor since the early 1970s. As hundreds of qualified workers vied for every job, compensation and benefits declined, employers became more demanding, and the number of hours in the workweek increased. When I was in college in the early 1980s, the average Chinese worker worked far more hours per week than the average American, and there was discussion of reducing the 5-day workweek (and everyone worked 9 to 5, with an hour off for lunch) to 4 days a week--what would we do with all that leisure time?
What a sad joke that workers of my generation were literally worked to death by mindless corporations in order to give a few Robber-Baron CEOs more money than they could waste in a million lifetimes.
Even for those willing to work insane hours, financial stability slipped away. Vested pension funds were stolen or bankrupted for millions of Americans, with Washington politicians loudly voicing their outrage while failing to even bring charges against the scam artists that stole hundreds of millions from their employees. 401k plans replace pensions (except for government workers, of course). Washington's incredible level of overspending and borrowing meant that interest rates had to be artificially locked near zero, so safe savings accounts wouldn't help with retirement. Instead, you had to invest in the stock market--which is filled with fees and costs (and taxes), and only continues to have any value as long as the Fed continues to print new fiat currency by the hundreds of billions per month.
Real estate (that used to the most stable path to financial security) lost 1/3 of its value in 2008 and may never recover. Property taxes are onerous and continue to rise even after your house if paid off. Perpetual government overspending requires endless dollar devaluation and interest rates locked at zero for decades, which means your savings actually lose buying power over time.
Cost of living continues to escalate as Big Business must constantly increase profit levels from mortgages, utilities and health care costs; while costs that should be minimal or even necessary (like insurance) are ridiculously expensive due to both Big Business overhead plus an excess of lawyers chasing lottery-style lawsuit winnings.
Most expensive of all, Big Government imbeds more and more taxes at every level of the economy and never stops seeking more of your income in direct taxes. The explosion in the size of government unfortunately does NOT mean a better safety net; instead, the huge amount of taxes confiscated from the economy goes mainly to support the bureaucracy itself.
And of course the Baby Boom is now retiring, and counting on a Ponzi-Scam Social Security system that suffers from both not enough young workers plus the increasingly-worthless value of labor: skimming off of subsistence level wages doesn't even pay for the bloated Big Government, let alone transfer payments. Too bad that extra $2.7 trillion in Social Security taxes was spent by Washington long ago; a trust fund invested for the retirement of the Baby Boom would have been a great idea if Washington politicians had even the smallest level of ethics.
The silver lining to this hurricane cloud? The realization that working incredibly hard all your life won't get you a secure retirement after all. It was a devil's bargain to start with--to sell the best 30+ years of your life in the hopes you can enjoy life a bit when you're old, tired, and limited by health problems? What were we thinking?
Anyone who works for a living is naive if they feel satisfied about their financial situation, and I don't just mean those with expensive tastes. Even if you entered the workforce long ago when a technical college degree and good work ethic guaranteed a career, and you did all the right things financially (like get a 15-year mortgage and pay it off as quick with direct payments to principle), it's almost impossible to save enough to have a secure retirement that can weather health care costs and longevity.
Pretty much everything is stacked against the working class today; much more so than at any time in American history. Our Middle Class arose in the industrial boom following WWII, thanks to strict immigration laws that kept the value of labor high. Unfortunately Washington threw open the immigration floodgates in 1965, resulting in the plummeting value of labor since the early 1970s. As hundreds of qualified workers vied for every job, compensation and benefits declined, employers became more demanding, and the number of hours in the workweek increased. When I was in college in the early 1980s, the average Chinese worker worked far more hours per week than the average American, and there was discussion of reducing the 5-day workweek (and everyone worked 9 to 5, with an hour off for lunch) to 4 days a week--what would we do with all that leisure time?
What a sad joke that workers of my generation were literally worked to death by mindless corporations in order to give a few Robber-Baron CEOs more money than they could waste in a million lifetimes.
Even for those willing to work insane hours, financial stability slipped away. Vested pension funds were stolen or bankrupted for millions of Americans, with Washington politicians loudly voicing their outrage while failing to even bring charges against the scam artists that stole hundreds of millions from their employees. 401k plans replace pensions (except for government workers, of course). Washington's incredible level of overspending and borrowing meant that interest rates had to be artificially locked near zero, so safe savings accounts wouldn't help with retirement. Instead, you had to invest in the stock market--which is filled with fees and costs (and taxes), and only continues to have any value as long as the Fed continues to print new fiat currency by the hundreds of billions per month.
Real estate (that used to the most stable path to financial security) lost 1/3 of its value in 2008 and may never recover. Property taxes are onerous and continue to rise even after your house if paid off. Perpetual government overspending requires endless dollar devaluation and interest rates locked at zero for decades, which means your savings actually lose buying power over time.
Cost of living continues to escalate as Big Business must constantly increase profit levels from mortgages, utilities and health care costs; while costs that should be minimal or even necessary (like insurance) are ridiculously expensive due to both Big Business overhead plus an excess of lawyers chasing lottery-style lawsuit winnings.
Most expensive of all, Big Government imbeds more and more taxes at every level of the economy and never stops seeking more of your income in direct taxes. The explosion in the size of government unfortunately does NOT mean a better safety net; instead, the huge amount of taxes confiscated from the economy goes mainly to support the bureaucracy itself.
And of course the Baby Boom is now retiring, and counting on a Ponzi-Scam Social Security system that suffers from both not enough young workers plus the increasingly-worthless value of labor: skimming off of subsistence level wages doesn't even pay for the bloated Big Government, let alone transfer payments. Too bad that extra $2.7 trillion in Social Security taxes was spent by Washington long ago; a trust fund invested for the retirement of the Baby Boom would have been a great idea if Washington politicians had even the smallest level of ethics.
The silver lining to this hurricane cloud? The realization that working incredibly hard all your life won't get you a secure retirement after all. It was a devil's bargain to start with--to sell the best 30+ years of your life in the hopes you can enjoy life a bit when you're old, tired, and limited by health problems? What were we thinking?
Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine. Yeah, sure, what you say is true... all of it... but that doesn't mean that it's all of the truth.
I'm guessing if the NBER told you that you had two left hands, you'd immediately throw away all your right-handed gloves with confidence. Please tell me you also check the Weather Channel to see if it's currently raining outside.
So you take issue with NBER, do you? On what grounds? Who would you turn to instead? Go ahead...make a complete fool of yourself with this.
Neither is the Fed. Just because it's not a government agency, doesn't mean that it's not heavily influenced, integrated and/or funded as a public entity. In fact, the NBER supposedly gets ~75% of its income through grants.
This rot and nonsense again? The Fed is a creation of Congress. It is a government agency. People who work at the Fed are federal employees. Federal Tort Claims Act jurisprudence twisted out of context by whackjob liars and right-wing propagandists to claim to the contrary is flat out crap that doesn't alter the actual facts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AJNEOA
Just because it's not a government agency, doesn't mean that it's not heavily influenced, integrated and/or funded as a public entity. In fact, the NBER supposedly gets ~75% of its income through grants.
Supposedly? LOL! And where do you suppose those grants come from?
Last edited by oaktonite; 08-16-2013 at 09:23 AM..
This rot and nonsense again? The Fed is a creation of Congress. It is a government agency. People who work at the Fed are federal employees. Federal Tort Claims Act jurisprudence twisted out of context by whackjob liars and right-wing propagandists to claim to the contrary is flat out crap that doesn't alter the actual facts.
Haha, I love how predictable you are Oakie. Thanks for the rant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oaktonite
Supposedly? LOL! And where do you suppose those grants come from
Unless the mainstream media reports it from an "official source", it probably doesn't exist.
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