Pensions: too big to NOT fail
This is why retirement plans should NEVER be administered by government.
And the shocks to the economy to come out of this will be staggering. Mark my words, this could be the piece of straw that breaks the economy's back.
And the shocks to the economy to come out of this will be staggering. Mark my words, this could be the piece of straw that breaks the economy's back.
"This can only fail if the government fails, and that will never happen."
Those are just a couple of quotes that I've heard over the years. As long as the government is involved, we have nothing to worry about. It sounded unpatriotic to believe anything else. When I finally learned enough to know better, I was amazed at what a phoney bill of goods I was being sold, by people I thought I could trust who knew better, but had an agenda. Just one more definition of evil.
Jan
Which is 'frutile,' as an old college bud used to put it... a combination of futile and fruitless.
Any REAL plan to correct the deficiencies should and must be phased in over at least one entire working lifespan... 40 years or more.
I've suggested converting to an Opt-In Or Opt-Out choice for everyone newly entering the workforce... a decision to own all of your retirement savings and manage them yourself, OR let the bumblement manage it for you, OR split the percentage between the two.
With MAYBE the chance to modify those percentages a little through your work life.
Hell, the SocSec numbers haven't been modified to follow life expectancy over it's own lifetime! What was it at the start? 63-64 years? Retirement at 65 meant a negligible payout period, easy to cover with taxes and contributions. Today, with life expectancies a decade or two longer, the contributory rates make no sense at all, but they've hardly, if ever, been changed to match.
And everyone wants a Fix that Will Work in the next two to five years...
Utter stupidity and unreality, but hell... So Popular... Makes me sick.
But I've been very lucky in my life. Mom beat "self-reliance" and "stay out of debt" into me at a very early age, so I've saved every penny I could, with the assumption that SocSec would be the icing on the retirement cake, but I'd sure as hell try to maximize the cake _I_ was baking along the way.
Today, SocSec accounts for maybe forty-something percent of our annual 'burn rate' of cash outlays, so if even if it collapses, our end-of-life won't be destitute, though a bunch of downsizing will probably be needed.
People that think their financial needs in retirement will be a lot lower than before retiring are dreaming. Look at your fixed expenses and day-to-day living costs. You'll probably need around 80-90% of your net income At Retirement to live on After Retiring. Food, shelter, misc. insurance costs, rent or mortgage costs don't drop. Clothing? Did you spend all that much on ties and suits that you only wore to work? Those kinds of 'uniform costs' might be the only costs that disappear when you retire.
Did your mom point that out to you? Do you think there's any truth in what I just said?
Good luck, one way or the other!
Now help me find a way to get that idea into more minds! As too many managers have told me in the past, "You're just not saying it right..."
After a while, I just concluded that I was trying to transmit an FM signal to a bunch of AM receivers. And you know the output of an AM receiver when subjected to an FM signal, right?
Silence.
But chances are it won't happen, and we'll have a whole generation, maybe two, that doesn't get to retire, ever.
I plan on working until the day I die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygy7UDAD...
There are no 'real' shortages. Disruptions are result of dysfunctional government or occasional natural disaster.
A breakdown in socio-economic structure or hi-tech failure is the biggest threat to our future.
It's the manipulation of the ignorant masses by the psycho-elite that bring chaos to an otherwise stable environment. Here in the U.S. it's a 2-Party Turf War. Both sickened with their self-delusion of importance. Both causing more harm than good, seeming to enjoy the pain inflicted on others.
around, trying to find a way to get at the money set
aside for manhattan project workers' pensions +
benefits since ww2. . now, they are hitting the new
Pantex and Y12 prime contractor with a mandate
to reduce the costs of pensions and benefits, with
the explicit claim that infrastructure must receive
improved funding as a result.
we in the worker group are griping and protesting,
but they may get away with it. . these are fenced
dollars intended only for workers, since the inception
of the project. -- j
If you do not do this then you better have move to another country. Ayn Rand wrote what life would be like. All we can hope is there are the people she wrote about as well.
The problem with pension funds is that they assume a static 8-10% return. They don't ever adjust themselves to the REAL returns of the market, and we haven't seen 8% returns in more than a decade. And most pension funds don't invest in stocks because they are too risky - they invest in AAA or AA Bonds (like municipal bonds), which are very low risk, but have a correspondingly low return.
Nearly every government or union pension fund in the United States is under water in a big way. You can see a list of those so bad off they had to notify the Department of Labor here: (http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/criticalstatusno...). A watchdog site here (http://www.nilrr.org/nilrr-research/mult...) makes my eyes goggle.
ERISA needs to be amended so that if government workers' pension funds aren't prepaid (either by the employees or taxpayers) then future taxpayers have no duty to add anything to them, regardless of any promises they've gotten written into law. The relationship between those workers and the employing entity is simply so close that the legal concept of "undue influence" applies.
Jan
Joe
Jan
(But since I also continue to work...when would I collect the SS? Can't I just have my money back? <plaintive while>)
The only retirement plans I support are individual plans managed and invested in by me and me alone.
Jan
And Cyprus was a frightening example of what could happen, I agree. I would like to think (especially given the shift in power after the last elections) that it wouldn't happen in the US, but Obama could always order it by executive fiat, and I doubt Boehner would object.
Jan