Most of us are likely familiar with elderly friends and family who are struggling financially with the costs of assisted living, and as the population ages this problem is likely to get worse, not better. What the mainstream media misses, however, is that the real culprit is years of falling interest rates which results in capital being consumed faster than it can be produced. The collapse of defined benefit pensions is but one side effect, and this won’t be remedied by having the state assume responsibility for everyone’s retirement.
Millions of families are facing such daunting life choices — and potential financial ruin — as the escalating costs of in-home care, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes devour the savings and incomes of older Americans and their relatives.
“People are exposed to the possibility of depleting almost all their wealth,” said Richard W. Johnson, director of the program on retirement policy at the Urban Institute.
The prospect of dying broke looms as an imminent threat for the boomer generation, which vastly expanded the middle class and looked hopefully toward a comfortable retirement on the backbone of 401(k)s and pensions. Roughly 10,000 of them will turn 65 every day until 2030, expecting to live into their 80s and 90s as the price tag for long-term care explodes, outpacing inflation and reaching a half-trillion dollars a year, according to federal researchers.
One sad solution: MAID or Soylent Green, choose your weapon.
Or The Safest And Effectivest Jab Evah.
….and the mandatory jabs….
The elderly contribute significantly to CO2 emissions, and on that basis alone the solutions you propose will soon gain traction.
It will go like this:
“These old f**kers drove high emission vehicles for decades, heated their homes with fossil fuels, and generally destroyed the climate.” Or words to that effect…
My goal is to die flat broke and owing the government millions.
It is a situational matter.
Some land better than others, by grace or prudence, or even by thinking ahead and working with what we have to work with as the middling diminishing class.
That may be by working with a 401K in the USA, or by CCP in in the former land of the free.
I am a grateful latter stage Boomer and, God willing, I will age in place, avoid the medical industrial complex, and live my frugal and thrifty life, with whatever stoical intent I can muster.
In short, don’t play the victim game. It only makes you sound like the whiney class who blame everything else on the government’s failure to coddle you.
Man up and embrace the fruits of your labour. Sermon concluded, hokay?
Remember just a few years ago the baby boom generation was going to have the greatest exchange of wealth in history as much as 70 trillion dollars to our so called Greedy kids. What happened? Where’d it go?
I think the word or place you are looking for is, government.
Good lesson. Hope some can benefit from it.
The governments are the problem. They can’t keep their grubby, guilt-ridden, graft driven hands out of the proverbial cookie jar, spending for any cause that moves and a lot that don’t. You want a solution? Start stomping on government wastrels at the polls. They make one financial misstep and they are gone, no pension, no salary, recalled into obscurity. Down with petty thieving tyrants and their minions.
Those pension schemes were backed by corporate liabilities, backed by the labour power of future corporate employees. It assumed that the existence of the next generation of wage-slaves was not in doubt. What could possibly go wrong?
The idea that someone else’s children would pay for your “golden years”—through a government or corporate pension scheme—removed a huge incentive for people to have children at all. As a result, government and corporate pensions will pay out only a fraction of what was promised, if even that.
People who were serious of being properly taken care of in old age needed to have many children when they were young enough to care for them, instead of trying to depend on dogs and cats for all their emotional support.
Many gen X/Y coddled and poorly-educated kids do not care about their parents very much.
Governments had 50 years of planning time.
Problem?
Going exactly as planned and exactly as predicted.
Money has long been stolen and spent.
All the customers,er suckers are S.O.L.
Did anyone really believe that the Bureaus could be trusted with a great pool of wealth?
And not loot it?
Buyer Beware.
We will all be working til we die or are killed by our “help”.
When the feds reacted to Alberta’s suggestion of forming a Provincial Pension Plan,with panic..
You know that even Liberals know CPP is a Ponzi scheme.
Trudeau 1 and 2,along with all the other Dear Leaders in between have turned the Canadian Dollar into a worthless promise on paper.
The real cost of things has actually gone down over time,due to automation and mass production..the value of our money has been so degraded over that same period that everything costs us so much more..Using those Paper Promises.
Zimbabwe Mon,enjoy..
We will all be zillionaire,in Canadian Dollars..While being totally broke..
Forward.
And yes it is our fault.
We failed to recognize the Parasitic Overload for what it is and was..
So we failed to strangle them when it might have done some good.
Now it will be just for retribution,to ensure those few productive children might have a future.
Freed of the monsters we allowed to consume the nation.
I too thought our helpers would have limits.
Lows where even they would not go..
Hah.Wrong Again.
“People are exposed to the possibility of depleting almost all their wealth,” If a couple have saved for retirement, what is wrong with spending those savings to provide for them in their retirement? A fair part of the problem is that too many of the younger generation look upon mum and dad’s savings as their entitlement, and bitterly resent having to use said savings to keep mum and dad comfortable.
An advanced economy ought to have sufficient capital so that retirees can live off the interest and dividends without touching the capital. Due to interest rates falling to zero, for many that is nearly impossible. The problem with consuming the capital is that you may run out before you die.
So, i should have pimped out myself along with my talents and principles to the federal government to get one of those golden indexed pensions, and now, bien sûr, I’d be entitled to my entitlements.
Soon all we will be able to afford will be politicians pensions. Subsidized indexed pensions to those we elected to watch over the public purse. So why should we honour payments to those who were financially irresponsible buying our votes with our money. Ten cents on the dollar, take it or leave it.
The boomers didn’t massively expand the middle class, they were the beneficiaries of the greatest expansion of credit in history.
The economy grew 17x between 1960 and 2015, but debt grew 34x.
But boomers will claim that they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
I don’t mind dieing broke, my concern is to avoid living broke.
This seems to confuse two generations, baby boomers who are just now retiring and their parents who are now reaching end of life. For the latter, in-home care is financially the most efficient way of living. The boomers should be looking after this generation, not worrying about what will happen to them in 25-30 years.
Defined benefit pensions were never a reality for anyone other than government employees for which the government will borrow endlessly through our pockets.
Assisted living care outside the family home is a dream, reachable only by the well-to-do. Looking at the finances of the average boomer they will never reach that goal. Retiring with a mortgage, having a car loan at 72 years of age. These people are financially reckless and will reap what they have sown – which is not much.
People are retiring fat, unhealthy and in debt. Then they look around for help.