Is 80 the new 65?
Thanks to the Great Obama Depression, 80 might be the new 65.
From Bloomberg:
American International Group Inc. (AIG) Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche said Europe’s debt crisis shows governments worldwide must accept that people will have to work more years as life expectancies increase.
“Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,” Benmosche, who turned 68 last week, said during a weekend interview at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”
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The crisis, now in its third year, threatens to destroy Europe’s 17-nation currency union as Greece contemplates exiting the euro and Spain sees its bond yields rise and banking industry falter. German Chancellor Angela Merkel hardened her opposition to joint debt sharing in the euro region as U.S. President Barack Obama singled out Europe’s leaders for not doing enough to arrest the crisis.
Greece abandoning the euro could be a disaster for the country and Europe must work to keep that from happening, said Benmosche, whose company was the world’s biggest insurer before it took a U.S. bailout.
“People in Greece have to see there is no easy way out of this” and the government must get them to work longer, he said in the June 2 interview on the Adriatic coast. “If not, and if they go to their own currency, I think they will see huge inflation and it will be devastating for people on fixed incomes.”
Life Expectancy
Greece, where the average life expectancy is 81.3 years, has an effective retirement age of 59.6, among the lowest in Europe, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. French President Francois Hollande, the Socialist who was sworn in last month, has pledged to cut the retirement age to 60 from 62 while increasing corporate and bank taxes and introducing a 75 percent levy on earnings of more than 1 million euros ($1.2 million).
Retirement is a phenomom that has only been around for a couple of generations. A century ago, people worked until they either died or could no longer physically work.
When Social Security was introduced, the average life expectancy was only 63 and no one could start drawing benefits until 65. The numbers worked.
Since then, American life expectancy has steadily grown until now it is well into the 70s.
The numbers no longer work.
The end result of the Great Obama Depression may well be Americans staying in the work force well into their 70’s.
Americans will decide whether we like this change or not but no matter whether we like it or not, it will probably be our new reality.
Tags: age, depression, great, obama, retirement
Permalink Reply by Pastor Rob Bremer on Wal-mart greeters!
Permalink Reply by Ginny Marriott on Our Wal-Marts don't have greeters anymore.
Permalink Reply by Thomas on Walmart has already begun to phase out their greeters.
Having a job and receiving a paycheck may sound as if it would be at least contributary to a desired solution. It is not really the paycheck that counts. It is the material worth that is being produced by the person doing the job that makes a contribution to the collective standard of living and lifestyles of the society, including those who are retired or otherwise unemployed.
I worked in the fields helping to harvest various crops beginning when I was 12. By 15, I found what I thought was a better idea. I got a job pumping gas, doing lube jobs and washing cars. From there, after finishing high school, I went into the military and then on to a civilian career in the field of electronics. But now at almost 70 and knowing that I am looking back on far more years than I have to look forward to, I have begun to look back. My technical knowledge is even less functional and more obsolete than I am. I look all the way back to the beginning of the journey and I think about those June and July days picking bush beans in the hot sun for a dollar a bushel and somehow I don't believe I could make a living wage in the fields anymore--even adjusted for inflation. Besides, I doubt that I would be able to compete for a job with a much younger illegal alien who grew up in a hotter climate and is willing to work his or her butt off for long hours, days and weeks.
Take the time to look past the money. Money is important but fiat currency does not HAVE material worth, instead it REPRESENTS material worth. The only jobs that will make a contribution to any of our retirement security--regardless of who we believe is providing the retirement--are jobs that produce items that are of material worth in the lives of living, breathing human beings.
Such items of material worth do not come from Walmart greeters and similar jobs nor do they come from the no-ethics kleptoparasites in Washington nor are they produced by the jungle-ethics financialist banksters on Wall Street who, by the way, own the no-ethics Washington kleptoparasites outright. Such items are produced by real working people doing real jobs in the real economy in the real 50 states of the real United States of America. It is those working people--including the illegals--who are providing all of the retirement security that any of us may have.
Regardless of what anyone may think, no one in Washington has special--perhaps thaumarurgic--powers that our governments are able to use to over-ride the parameters of the possible that are established and then enforced by the laws of nature.
We are human beings.
We live on planet Earth.
We will obey the laws of physics.
Permalink Reply by Clarence E. DeBarrows on "It is not money but the volume of goods and services which determines whether a country is poverty stricken or prospeous."
Thomas Sowell
Basic Economics, page 5.
Permalink Reply by Jerry W Smith on most of your greeters, if all @ wlamart are gone, due to the obama depression
Permalink Reply by Judson Phillips on Become an entrepreneur. Create your own job. Do what you are passionate about.
Permalink Reply by Robert H. Woodman on Bravo! I love the book from several years ago titled Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow.
Thanks for posting this article.
Permalink Reply by Pastor Rob Bremer on Judson,
See my message below. That is what I said earlier.
Pastor Rob
Permalink Reply by Ginny Marriott on I must be passionate about cleaning homes. I had retired, but put out the word I was "putting the band back together"... one woman band that is, I am quickly filling up my week once again... I LOVE the rich... I never got a cleaning job from a poor person. ;-)
Permalink Reply by david chaney on When I lived in Tampa, I saw 75 yr old women working faster than girls in their 20's many of which lacked a work ethic. Life expectancies vary from 55 to 115. I've heard of ranch workers in western Nebraska working into their 80's and that's hard work. What's important is that employers not discriminate based on age, but instead test workers to see if they can do the job. Oh, I forgot, that's discriminates against minorities and worse yet people may actually have to hire the best qualified workers instead of someone's relative or friend.
Permalink Reply by Nancy Eddy on I'd already figured out that I have no choice but to keep working as long as I'm physically able to do so... Sucks.
Permalink Reply by Jeff Waller on What these idiots don't realize is that society is not some sort of experiment where they can tweak and change things to make it suit their needs. Everything they do changes everyone's life...except their own!
If we old fogeys have to keep working until 70 and 80 years of age before retiring, then were are the jobs going to come from for the youth, whose burden we are supposedly lifting by working longer? You can't change one thing without it affecting a dozen others. But then, the youth with their inexperience can only get minimum wage. Naturally, the older, more experienced would be left out in the cold. Maybe they want US to "whither on the vine"...you know, so they can get those young people to vote for them.
Ah, social security is a Ponzi scheme anyway...doomed to fail! We should call it Socialist Security!
Maybe if we stopped killing babies there would be enough minimum wage workers to provide for the retirement of the fogeys at the current 62-65 years of age! Just a thought! Someone ask the Left if they could possibly do that. I know! I know! It would be a great sacrifice, but hey! We're all in this together, right?
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