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And the globalists love to trot out that argument....that the people "lived too well" for a couple of decades after WWII and it was inevitable and unavoidable that they got put back in their place. Makes me see red, but they'll keep repeating it as long as there is someone, somewhere that will buy into it. Fortunately, there aren't many left who do.
Exactly
it makes me think it is a Paid Poster for Globalists Government Propaganda
You see that canard and many others being repeated constantly in order to rewrite history.
We had a higher standard of living and people had more money because the majority of American Corporations were based here in this country and these corporations had no problem lobbying for tariffs at the drop of a hat when it foreign products put a dent in their profits
Workers and Consumers benefited from this arrangement as a side effect.
Now that a lot of Corporations have gone global, they have no need for tariffs anymore but they still infest our government with their lobbyists so they can have their cake and eat it to
It will be a brighter world a when a lot of these global corporations and the ones that run them go extinct
They are a pariah on this earth
Just out of curiosity, what do you consider as gaming the stock market?
There was a time when the majority of business did not have stocks on wall street
That was also the time when the consumer was the main customer and business competed with each other to gain customers with high quality products
That time has come and gone
The main customer now is shareholders and upper management and that is ALL were hear all the time that matters
Shareholders!
So, the customers get the cheapest quality products made by slave labor in Communist Countries and the shareholders reap the rewards
Amassing a lot of wealth from the stock market while everyone else did all the hard work is the definition of a parasite
I do not care if it is legal or not, the end result it still the same
I haven't read the whole thread yet, but between the animosity between generations and the "poor" working elderly, I'm sorry but I have limited sympathy. While I get it some people run into tough situations that drain their finances, but the story behind these people doesn't sound like one of those cases. I don't care if you're a 30 something who hasn't begun a retirement account, or a 60 something with only a few bucks in your savings, retirement and old age doesn't sneak up on you. There's plenty of time to adjust your lifestyle and manage your income. Been there/done that, I was laid off at 47 Y.O. when business was in a slump (Early 90's), we went through everything (savings, IRA's) to save our house and took minimum wage jobs to try to feed the family and pay bills. It took a few years, but we pulled ourselves out, we found good jobs, made average salaries, didn't buy new cars, didn't take exotic or expensive vacations, lived a simple, frugal, comfortable lifestyle. Over the past ~20 years we finished raising our kids who went into the trades, paid off our debt, paid off the mortgage, and put money away for retirement. I retire in 10 months, and we're going to be very financially secure.
As far as the Devers, if I read it right they own a trailer in Indiana and use their 33' fifth wheel for their home on the road, you're not going to pull a 33' trailer with a half ton pick up so they must own a pretty good sized truck. If I had only $22K/yr income, I'd be considering better distribution of all my assets and cutting expenses. Driving 1500 miles with that rig for $10/hr really makes no sense. We know people, maybe like the Devers(?), they had boats, they went to Disney every year, they had bigger houses than we did, always had new cars, new toys, and now they're crying about how hard it is to afford retirement. While there exists true hardship, many are the product of poor planning and management.
The guy drove 1400 miles for a temporary $10 an hour job? That doesn't make any sense and the daily commute must be killing him..?
There are cases where older people want to keep working and there are cases where they have to.
I know older people that lost a bundle in the recession and they are still working. I know others that work because they cannot afford health insurance.
Still there are others who made terrible choices throughout their lives and they have nothing to fall back on in their old age so they have to keep working.
There is a real problem in this country that people are ignoring, there are too many people and not enough jobs but we continue to support and embrace illegal aliens by the millions. What is going to happen to that guy cleaning up the campground for $10 an hour when a illegal alien that was just given amnesty comes along and is willing to do the work for $9 ?
What could possibly go wrong ?
I agree that this story obviously has another side.
Unemployment is at its lowest in many years, in some places, at its lowest ever at ~2%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohio_peasant
When reminiscing of the "good old days", we generally focus on the 1950s... the era of prosperous retirement and prosperous consumption (for some). But why not the 1850s? Or the 850s? For nearly all of human history, it has been our fate to contract some dreaded disease, probably in what today would be called middle-age; to suffer in abject misery, lacking medical care (leaches, anyone?), and to die on a bed of straw in a mud-hut, coughing up our own lungs.
Home ownership? For most people, in most counties and most epochs, it was outright illegal to privately own land. Land ownership was reserved for the nobility. Didn't choose your parents wisely? By law, you were prohibited from owning land. And chances are, that you yourself were owned... together with the land.
Senior citizens who recalcitrantly rely on certificates of deposit in banks, have indeed been struggling over the past decade. Senior citizens (and everyone else) who have given due consideration to stock markets, have done at least tolerably well. The bank is not a place to “investâ€. It’s a place to store short-term cash reserves.
Indeed. The very meaning of “conservative†is risk-averse and change-averse, preferring the familiar and traditional, over the newfangled and untried.
That’s exactly what’s happening in my locale. The younger and more enterprising people are moving away. The “yuppie†elderly move to Florida or Arizona, while the less healthy and less affluent stay put.
I’d go further. Vast portions of the Midwest (outside of course of places such as Chicago or Minneapolis) are finally recovering… to the price-levels of the late 1990s.
My FIL lived to be 97; my MIL lived to be 98 and just died last month. They were blue collar workers; FIL was a painter who stood on a scaffold over the Missouri River to paint the I-80 bridge between Nebraska and Iowa, to give just one example of the type of work he did. My MIL worked in retail. They were very risk averse, invested only in CDs. MIL lived in a senior apt. for 10 years, which provided some services but was fairly expensive. She was in a nursing home for about a year. She still had some money left over!
Quote:
Originally Posted by vacoder
Simply put we now outlive our wealth. While people live longer due to medical advances our savings can not keep up with that. This is why so often an elderly persons last years are in poverty.
See above. Plus, have you heard of Medicare? Medicare does not pay everything, and generally nothing for nursing home care, but medical expenses usually are not the cause of impoverishment in the elderly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FirebirdCamaro1220
My industry is aged out at 75 due to insurance, no carrier wants to cover truck drivers older than that
Anyone over 65 has Medicare as primary, if they have worked for at least 10 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lieneke
That sounds ideal. Many who retire are dead within a year.
That's the difference isn't it - it's the length of time that it takes to complete the task. Older age does it in two hours, younger age can take days.
But you are taking a job away from a younger person.
You see (or perhaps you don't), there is a point where your higher income outweighs any increased productivity that you might bring to the table.
You'd best believe that issue has been looked at by your employer. And will continually be looked until a certain point is reached. And then, off you go.
It happens all the time.
My husband "retired" 2 years ago. His company still hasn't found anyone to actually replace him. He works about 20 hrs a week on contract. UE is very low here in CO. Everyone who can work is working, pretty much.
How long have you known this guy? How do you know he didn't do the best he could. Not everyone was born into privilege and not everyone is overpaid. And if everyone " got more education" then MORE would be skilled and suddenly your overpaid job doesn't overpay you anymore. Try actually earning your pay before spouting platitudes!
Guess I triggered an anonymous "patriot" LMAO!! I fled the US in tears alright-happy, joyous ones, but tears nonetheless. #NoOneLike ACoward.
Seeing as how I pay taxes to America, I'm going with the mind-set of, I can comment on anything American I so choose.
Not sure why you "patriots" get your knickers in a knot when an expat disagrees with your wrong opinion.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
27,606 posts, read 14,587,616 times
Reputation: 9169
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
I agree that this story obviously has another side.
Unemployment is at its lowest in many years, in some places, at its lowest ever at ~2%.
My FIL lived to be 97; my MIL lived to be 98 and just died last month. They were blue collar workers; FIL was a painter who stood on a scaffold over the Missouri River to paint the I-80 bridge between Nebraska and Iowa, to give just one example of the type of work he did. My MIL worked in retail. They were very risk averse, invested only in CDs. MIL lived in a senior apt. for 10 years, which provided some services but was fairly expensive. She was in a nursing home for about a year. She still had some money left over!
See above. Plus, have you heard of Medicare? Medicare does not pay everything, and generally nothing for nursing home care, but medical expenses usually are not the cause of impoverishment in the elderly.
Anyone over 65 has Medicare as primary, if they have worked for at least 10 years.
My husband "retired" 2 years ago. His company still hasn't found anyone to actually replace him. He works about 20 hrs a week on contract. UE is very low here in CO. Everyone who can work is working, pretty much.
I meant commercial auto insurance, not health insurance. Truck drivers have to be insured to legally work. And no carrier will insure us if we are 75+
Those days are not coming back, any more than the steel industry is, so we need to move on.
Thats because the corporations and banks own our government.
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