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The Great Retirement Ripoff
By JLP | October 27, 2005
Time magazine has an interesting cover story in their October 31, 2005 issue called the Great Retirement Ripoff. No effort was spared in trying to make this article as sad as humanly possible. Read this excerpt and you’ll see what I mean:
The little shed behind Joy Whitehouse’s modest home is filled with aluminum cans–soda cans, soup cans and vegetable cans–that she collects from neighbors or finds during her periodic expeditions along the roadside. Two times a month, she takes them to a recycler, who pays her as much as $30 for her harvest of castoffs. When your fixed income is $942 a month, an extra $30 here and there makes a big difference. After paying rent, utilities and insurance, Whitehouse is left with less than $40 a week to cover everything else. So the money from cans helps pay medical bills for…
Like I said, I have not read the complete article so I don’t want to prejudge it, but if it is anything like this first paragraph, I can tell that it is not going to be fair and balanced.
Topics: Retirement Planning | 2 Comments »
October 27th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
JLP,
I did read the whole article and it is pretty (extremely) one-sided. There were a few issues they raised in there that really did get my goat (city council members getting really sweet retirement package payouts, while their pension fund is running a deficit, airline CEOs being compensated for 30 years of work when they were there for 11 – after guiding their company to bankruptcy).
What I DO hope the article accomplishes: I hope more people read it, sit back in their chair, and say to themselves, “Well, if the government’s not going to do it, and my own company won’t do it, I guess I will have to secure my own retirement.”
And I hope people are healthy and well enough to be able to do just that.
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Can’t wait to read the article. I just wrote an editorial commenting about the fact that state and local public employees (teachers, firemen, police, gov employees) having the last bastion of secure jobs, now that GM has tanked. If you think about it, there really is no major employeer of US manufacturing that is left, really major, I mean. Does anybody know of a major employeer that has made it to the 30 year mark and has a viable retirement plan in place? Maybe Apple. Maybe IBM. Federal employees are safe for now. California just saw a planned extension of teacher vesting defeated, no doubt by one of the major employed segments of the state, the teachers.
Back in the 70’s when my last child was just a baby, nobody, NOBODY, worried about retirement. Our parents had saved and scrimped but we had good jobs. And were buying, buying, buying. Washers, dryers, furniture, cars, there was no end to it. And if you look around, this buying craze is still going on by the young people. There are no savings, there is tremendous debt and bankrupsy. I recall reading the comment that : What can’t go on won’t. There is a schism splitting the country. Great wealth reinforcing the legal standing for accumulating and amassing great wealth. And the cutting of social programs to remediate poverty. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Everywhere there are state and local governments that are ignoring or pretending to deal with the enormous financial obligations of their retirement plans. Most just hope that the local economy picks up enought to claim some progress.
I will be 60 in one year, 3 weeks and 2 days. You might say I am waiting with bated breath; will Bush eliminate the widow’s pension I am counting on to collect $830.00 a months from Social Security? The lady in the article owns her own home; I used to be a homeowner. I love gardening and my lawn; I will probably never have one again. I love my grandchildren and would love to have space to have them visit me. I live in a highrise and am grateful that it is 30% of my General Assistance grant furnished by the state of Minnesota, one of the only two states that give cash grants now. I probably deserve this a I had taken bankrupsy years ago with my husband; we did not handle money well.
My husband who worked all his life, brought his paycheck home, never left me or the children died at work in a body shop and was creamated in a paupers funeral.
Does this story sound fair and balanced. We build two homes and remodeled one. We lived like normal people for 30 years; then lost everything. No, it wasn’t alcohol, frugs, or debt. It was greed and envy; it was just the slight tipping of our lives from being able to make it from one payday to the next. Just a slight nudge.