Opinion: Half of Americans over 55 may retire poor

He appointed the Fed governors who are throwing trillions at the super-duper uber-rich.

 

As is noted by your claim that we only got fifty cents of new activity out of $1.00 in new debt. government spending on things other than infrastructure usually has a less than $1 effect

 

Its the family that is broken. In much poorer countries old people are taken care of by their children. Not so much here.

 

Oh, and you think the Fed governors would not do that under a Democrat president?

A lot of people are totally ignorant about what actually goes on.
If I remember correctly, it was Democrats who were very naively supporting policies by the Fed (holding down interest rates, pumping money into banks) which would actually benefit the very rich, during the Obama Administration.
The media was telling them what to think. And they did not have a mind enough of their own to be able to think about what these type of policies would actually do.
I know we have discussed this in a past thread somewhere. But I'm not going to waste my time trying to find it right now.

And I'm also not going to get into it here because it would be a discussion that would derail this topic.

 

It's parents' responsibility to take care of their children, not the other way around.

 

Indeed I do, because they have never before in the Fed's history, under any Democratic or Republican president, issued trillions of new dollars to directly pay the super-duper uber-rich peak-bubble prices for their overvalued corporate stocks and bonds in order to rescue them from their own greed.

And on form, you might be one of them.

Yes, Obama appointed all the usual Wall Street suspects to all the important economic posts, then got the Democrats in Congress to go along with their bad advice.

 

Man, you sure have some issues with the elderly. What happened? Bad parent experience? Grandparents?

 

Of course it's the other way around. As long as the parents have done the right thing and been responsible, decent, and respectful throughout their lives, they absolutely should be cared for by their kids.

 

In the vast majority of cultures parents take care of children when they are vulnerable, and children take care of parents when they are vulnerable. This fixes a lot of problems. Young adults don't have to worry about daycare for their kids. Older people don't need to worry about saving for retirement. Young adults don't have to worry about affording college or their first home. When families are strong it fixes a lot of seemingly unfixable problems.

 

Family and property have always been fundamental to security and power for the non-wealthy.

And that is truer in 2020 than it has been in modern human history.

 

No, that's nothing but psychological speculation without basis in fact.

Nope, nothing but willingness to face the facts of biology. Most people, like you, lack that willingness. Simple.

 

Sure, there are lots of benefits to such mutually advantageous relationships. But we are all here because our ancestors looked after their kids, not because they looked after their parents.

 

Darwin says, nope.

If the kids have the wherewithal to do so without shortchanging their own kids.

 

What? It's the PARENTS' responsibility to fund themselves, obviously. No one is going to take in an elderly parent who's deliberately p!ssed all their money up a wall, obviously. Children's care comes in the form of practical help and companionship. If the parent is to move in with family, they must fund the home additions or 'granny flat' or whatever is required, and contribute to the cost of groceries and utilities etc. And of course, they must behave themselves just like anyone else who lives in a group. No dysfunctional behaviour, addictions, disrespect, etc etc.

Clearly, if you're elderly and unable to contribute as above, you made your choices in life. You decided you didn't want or need help in your old age, and so lived irresponsibly. Likewise if you're badly behaved or dysfunctional. Children have no obligation at all, in those cases.

 

Kids looking after their parents will allow parents to better look after their kids. When parents understand that their future is dependent on the future of their children, then they are more likely to help their kids get through college, get a job, or get their first house, help them with their kids, even get married. Multigenerational homes also save a ton of money and are far more affordable. Imagine living without the worry of whether you will be able to retire. Imagine having a baby and not worrying about how you will take care of it.

 

That makes absolutely no sense. You would have parents looking after both their kids who can't look after themselves and their parents who can't look after themselves. That is a recipe for imposing such a burden of care on them as will end up destroying their ability even to look after themselves.

What about the people who don't get that help from their parents, and the parents who do their best to tick all the right boxes and their kids still end up $#!+?

There is a reason adults do not want to live with their parents.

Imagine being able to live as an independent, responsible adult, raise your kids, and retire comfortably because you are not forced to support rich, greedy, privileged parasites your whole life.

 

You just insisted it was their children's responsibility.

But they do, because people like you tell them they are ingrates if they don't.

I'm curious: what are family relations like there where you live, on Planet Zondo?

That's kinda my point. A value-for-value transaction is natural. Parents of young children being held responsible for looking after both their kids and their parents is not.

 

In the modern economy we now have two-income households. Both the mother and father work. If they don't, then good luck affording anything. So they will cart their young children off to daycare for $10,000 per year to be raised by the daycare center. There are even noises about using public schools as modern daycare centers and allowing kids to stay until 6 PM when their parents get off of work. My point is that a better alternative is that grandparents help watch the kids in turn for room and board. So horrible right? We can still have daycare, but maybe use it less and use family more.

If parents don't help their kids with childcare, then kids don't help their parents when they retire. Thats what we have now. Parents do a little more to help their kids out and in exchange they don't have to worry about retirement.

In most other cultures they often do live with their parents because its more affordable. And with people retiring into poverty in the US, that might just be our future. Adults and their parents need to find a way to get along. Requires a bit of social skills but saves money for lower income people.

Or when you are young and not established your parents can help you afford college and your first house. Both of you can easily work since the grandparents are handling the kids. Your parents don't have to worry about saving for retirement and neither do you. When you get sick, your kids will take care of you. You won't be lonely since you will be living in a vibrant household.

Prepare to borrow a lot to get through college. Prepare to shell out a lot for daycare. You might also be renting for a while because you can't afford a house. I suggest you have a million saved up for retirement, plus keep in mind inflation and out of pocket medical expenses. If you can't take care of yourself anymore, prepare to die in a dark room in a cheap nursing home. If you manage to avoid that, you might get a little lonely living on your own while all your friends eventually die off.

 

1) I've only ever insisted it's the children's responsibility to CARE for elderly parents, not pay for elderly parents to have a lifestyle they deliberately failed to save for. Care means things like providing housing if required, but even then the elderly parent must still pay their way like any other adult family member. Only the young are exempt from paying 'board', because they've not had a chance to establish their own financial security yet. Elderly parents have had a lifetime to plan for retirement, so they must pay their way. Our care of them comes in practical form, not financial. A home with a supportive family, and all the benefits that go with that. Or regular visits and practical help if they live alone but close by.

2) I'm saying if you refuse your elderly parents a home or help (and your parents are good, decent, honourable people), you are indeed an ingrate.

3) I'd ask what planet you live on, if you think bad behaviour makes a close and harmonious family. More importantly, expecting decent and honourable behaviour is NOTHING. It's automatic for most people. Only the truly awful will insist on it into old age. If people want to be honoured and cared for, they need to earn it. No exceptions.

4) If you have young children, then it's likely you don't have very elderly parents - unless you didn't start having kids til you were 50 or something. Either way, one of the responsibilities of parenthood is to stay healthy, and therefore useful to your children for as long as possible. A parent who has abused their health to the point of being incapable of helping with the grandchildren, has not earned the right to be cared for. They've chosen their 'drug of choice' (obesity , addictions, lack of exercise, bad diet, whatever) over family, so they're in no position to demand anything.

 

1) Nonsense. If your fit and healthy parents are in their 60's (the most common age range for grandparents of younger children), they don't need 'care'. Once they're old enough to need help, your kids are probably going to be parents themselves. My own parents and in-laws are all in their 80's and living independently, and are all still perfectly capable of babysitting great-grandchildren, if such was needed in an emergency. They have all stayed very active, and none smoke, eat crap food, or drink more than a small glass of wine with dinner a couple of times a week. They all pay their own way in life. IOW, they've earned the right to have the care, companionship, and attention they now enjoy as a luxury, and will inevitably enjoy as a necessity.

2) Then they know not to be the same terrible parents their own were. They have a real world lesson on how wrong that is. And I'm sorry, but if your kids are sh!theads, you were absolutely not 'doing your best to tick all the right boxes'. The evidence is the sh!thead.

3) Sure, in the dysfunctional and spoiled brat First World, where we've been convinced that early emancipation is somehow a win. The same sick culture which never bothered to discuss the potential for lifelong poverty that that brings with it. In healthier societies, kids don't even think to ask whether it's 'unpleasant' to live with family. To them it'd be like asking themselves if maybe it'd be more fun not to have to breathe. No thanks. If you want to raise your kids to regard forward thinking as a buzz kill and beneath them, go for it.

4) Imagine being able to live your whole life with certainty of food and shelter, amongst people who have your back.

 

Anyone, 55 or over, in the US who has to retire poor is doing so because they made bad choices earlier in their lives.

 

That is nothing but absurd, disingenuous and despicable blame-the-victim filth. The American people did not choose to have their rights forcibly stripped from them and made into the private property of rich, greedy, privileged parasites, and they did not choose to be relentlessly robbed of their rightful earnings by taxation for the unearned profit of those same rich, greedy, privileged parasites. They most certainly did not choose to have by far the most expensive health care in the world, nor did they choose the monopoly privilege laws that make US medical care cost five or more times as much as it would in a free market.

 

But if they are older than their 60s, or not fit and healthy....?

Unless they are still economically dependent because the economy has been rigged to keep them poor. Which it has.

Good personal anecdote. Too bad it is not statistical data.

You don't seem to understand that your parents and in-laws do not constitute the entire population of parents and in-laws.

Garbage. The brain is a delicate mechanism, and sometimes things go permanently wrong for no reason anyone can identify or do anything about: genetics, illness, injury, toxic exposure, whatever. But no matter what the cause, all you can think to do is blame the victim.

It's being forcibly stripped of one's rights without just compensation and relentlessly robbed of one's rightful earnings for the unearned profit of the privileged that brings the potential for lifelong poverty, not early independence, and I will thank you to remember it.

Ahem. I -- perhaps unlike you -- raised my kids to have respect for both the facts and themselves, and not to just blindly believe evil, blame-the victim filth, or supinely submit to evil or injustice that happens to have the force of law.

You mean, in a community where your rights have not been forcibly stripped from you and made into the private property of rich, greedy, privileged parasites, and the government does not relentlessly rob you of your rightful earnings and give the loot to those same rich, greedy, privileged parasites? Yeah, I can imagine that. But it isn't easy.

 

That's a good point, because the younger generation is statistically poorer than their parents.

So one wonders "Who is going to take care of the parents?" when it is likely the grown up adult children will have less money than their parents.

 

When you don't blame the parents for the 'bad child' they created, you are blaming the victim.