Retirement thoughts Past Present Future

[goeduck]

FYI Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964.

 

[Oaktree]

My frame of reference; being born in 1961; the "doors" were already slamming shut; life behind the boomers; I felt I had to hurry...
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I also have the urge to defend the younger people who ARE busting their butts; paying into the "system".

I think every generation has "side slopers" who don't, who won't, or who can't do their share of the work.

Not sure what you mean by "doors slamming shut", but I agree with the rest of what I quoted from you. Old timers have been complaining about "kids these days" since the beginning of time. The story Moss told of his mother in law and her co-worker underscored this.

 

[California]

I have an appointment with financial adviser this week. What I want to say, is, "I want investment in the nastiest companies on Earth." They always win, and they always have. Money and how you can leverage it, to your personal gain, is the only thing that matters. Cause money solves things and can fix things.

Don't know that you have to go 'nastiest' for superior investment results. But there has to be an explanation why an S&P index fund has results better than 85% of individual investors can accomplish with their own research.

My hypothesis is the S&P is the list of companies with the most financial and political power to push everybody else around so they get the best outcomes.

Maybe that's genteel nastiness.

 

[California]

My frame of reference; being born in 1961; the "doors" were already slamming shut; life behind the boomers; I felt I had to hurry...

That's not just your imagination. The ratio of CEO pay to shop labor pay has increased drastically in recent years.

I recently saw a chart showing the higher one's income is, the steeper their own increase in income year to year. While minimum wage and starting salaries haven't kept pace with inflation. An hour of labor now doesn't buy as much as it did when one union job could support a family, with maybe a boat at their summer home on the lake. That American Dream is now history for most.

The 3 Richest Americans Hold More Wealth Than Bottom 50% Of The Country, Study Finds

 

[Larry Caldwell]

No, I was born in 1944 and was full-time farming until a heart operation made me retire two years ago in May and just turned 77.
When younger I worked behind a desk to make enough money to get a deposit on a farm. As I posted, I expect any white collar worker to put in at least 50 to 60 hours a week. A few years later I was still doing that and farming too - not a hobby farm, but a business. My wife was in her late 50s and working over 100 hours a week (I was doing the same) when I decided we needed to change our farm for another where she did not need to work so much. We moved to a smaller place where we continued for another 18 years before retiring.

No human being is a machine, and even machines need maintenance downtime.

Yes, I am sure. If you worked 17 hours a day for 5 days a week that is still only 85 hours a week, but you have to deduct from that the time you spent travelling between home and your workplace (as everyone does that) and the time to have dinner, so let us say 60 to 70 hours a week. Not a lot really. Take off also any stops for refreshments. You cannot go from leaving home to be on the job at 6 a.m. and go to 4 p.m. without any break.

I agree that had we maintained 100+ hours a week in our late 50s it would have killed us too. In our 20s and 30s it was not too dificult.
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I am not claiming to be anything special by way of working - the original point of me posting was that younger folks than me in supposedly office jobs are not in the office. The point of having an office is that all the information relative to the customers/clients/whatever are in the office and so are all the different people with the knowledge about those customers etc. Individuals working from home do not have the ready access (no matter how good they claim their computer systems to be) to colleagues and information that they would have in their offices.

Personal experience of attempting to deal with people in several different countries since the phenoma began is that responses from many governmental and commercial businesses is immensely worse than when they were in their proper workplace.

Let us be realistic people. There are those who work, and those who do not, but we all need some downtime every now and again. We all need to keep hydrated. We all need to eat. Those who claim not to do so are not telling the truth.

I expect others (who have a vested interest in staff not attending their workplace) to disagree with me.

When I was in college majoring in engineering, it was 90 hours a week. It was a grind. During breaks all I could do was sleep 20 hours a day to recover from exhaustion. That was a 7 day schedule, no days off.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The aging population factors are mild in the USA when compared to China, Russia and Europe. This article gives us a glimpse of problems facing the USA. The pandemic long term cost to SS and Medicare is yet to be determined as is the impact of inflation and current layoffs.

The current labor shortage will permit some to work for a few more years so they can save more and increase their SS pay out. The article may be more help for the 45 year old group than the 65 age group

Why China’s population is shrinking

And why that’s a big deal.

www.vox.com

I'll believe there is a labor shortage when wages increase by 50%.

 

[two_bit_score]

I'll believe there is a labor shortage when wages increase by 50%.

As long as people are not paid more to stay home than to work.

 

[California]

As long as people are not paid more to stay home than to work.

Wages need to exceed stay-home. That's not the case while WalMart employees for example are so poorly paid that they legally qualify for welfare.

 

[Snobdds]

Wages need to exceed stay-home. That's not the case while WalMart employees for example are so poorly paid that they legally qualify for welfare.

That is a myth that has been debunked many times...

 

[Straightgrain3016]

FYI Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964.

1960-64 was called the "surge" when I was in my 20s.

Picture a cartoon where a fire hose is opened, and the bubble moves down the line...1961 was and still-is on the back side of that bubble.

"Doors Slamming Shut" means the opportunities were quickly decreasing.

It's hard to believe "doors slamming shut" needs explaining in this seasoned group, but here in social media land, "decreasing opportunities" probably does too.

Perhaps a look at the poor economy in the late 70s, or the era America had gone through prior to 1960, with all the infrastructure programs being completed; the Eisenhower Freeway system, rail expansion, the CA auqaduct, the hydro-electric dams...the off-shoring of our industries, the war machines winding down...before Lee Iacocco brought Dodge back, back when the "rust belt" was just beginning to turn orange...