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Retirement -- election no-show
Commentator Helaine Olen says neither President Obama nor Mitt Romeny acknowledge coming 'retirement crisis.'
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We've got just a few days before the presidential election, and we've heard a lot from both President Obama and Mitt Romney about what they'd do to shore up the middle class. But there is an equally pressing issue that neither candidate is talking about.
We're on the verge of a retirement crisis in this country. It's something pretty much everyone knows except, apparently, the two guys running for president. Pensions are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. And the private savings schemes that have taken their place are not working out as planned. Most Americans have less than $100,000 in their 401(k)s. And that's unlikely to change anytime soon since about half of us live paycheck to paycheck. We can hardly save for an emergency tomorrow, never mind something that's going to happen 20 years from now.
In addition, stock market returns have been anemic for more than a decade, so even those few who have saved money are not seeing the gains financial advisors promised.
But the presidential candidates don't talk about this. Instead, they discuss, as President Obama put it, "tweaking" Social Security, a program vital to seniors. The Census Bureau reports an additional 20 million Americans over 65 would live in poverty if not for their Social Security checks.
Politicians are fond of bashing Social Security as a major source of our budgetary woes. During the Bush Administration, Mitt Romney's running mate Paul Ryan supported a proposal to turn a portion of our Social Security funds over to Wall Street - an idea that proved about as popular as paroling Charles Manson.
The current Social Security meme popular with deficit hawks calls for raising the age we can claim benefits. More Americans say they want to work longer, but no one has proven the jobs will be there for them to do that. Nor is it clear we will be capable of performing them. Studies show Baby Boomers are less healthy and suffering from more chronic ailments than their parents at the same age.
No wonder so many of us are scared, with surveys finding about 80 percent of us are petrified about how we will get by when our paid work lives end. And that number will likely go up every time someone tells us they plan to "tweak" Social Security.
What an opinionated article with passive-agressive statements woven throughout!
Right in the middle of this "commentary", the author drops names in a negative connotation: She names Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Why feel the need to put the spotlight on them? Besmirch Mitt Romney's name (this article came out just before the Presidential election) because his VP running-mate, Paul Ryan, supported partially privatizing Social Security 8 years ago. Great timing, Ms. Olen.
In the same paragraph we try to get by with an inaccurate statement aimed at creating fear in the reader: "turn a portion of our Social Security funds over to Wall Street". Please. An individual opening a 401(k)-like account that is funded with a portion of what would have gone into the Social Security program is hardly allowing Wall Street to have control. Yes, it would be invested in the market. No, it isn't theirs to play with or control. That is your job.
Pensions have gone away, it is up to us to save for our own retirement. This isn't a new concept, it's been an important topic for 30+ years. If we haven't learned how to save money by now then it is our own fault. It has nothing to do with Presidential elections or Wall Street.
"In addition, stock market returns have been anemic for more than a decade, so even those few who have saved money are not seeing the gains financial advisors promised."
I have heard this many time in the past couple of years.
If you take the most generic investment in the stock market you can make, a Total Stock Market index fund........ it's doubled over the past ten years. Vanguard (and others) offer this in a mutual fund and ETF (ticker VTI) and the expenses are very low.
Doubling in 10 years means approximately a 7.2% return. Is this "anemic?"
President Obama stated: “What’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.” As long as working people are limited by earning income solely through their labor worker wages, they will be left behind by the continued gravitation of economic bounty toward the top 1 percent of the people that the system is rigged to benefit. Working people and the middle class will continue to stagnate, resulting in a stagnated consumer economy. More troubling is that this continued stagnation will further dim the economic hopes of America’s youth, no matter what their education level. The result will have profound long-term consequences for the nation’s economic health and further limit equal earning opportunity and spread income inequality. As the need for labor decreases and the power and leverage of productive capital increases, the gap between labor workers and capital owners will increase, which will result in revolution.
The ONLY way the economy, which is reflected in the reality that jobs ONLY slowly continue to return and those jobs are paying less and less, is for stimulating and incentivizing economic growth simultaneously with broadening private, individual ownership in FUTURE income-producing capital assets generated by our business corporations––productive land, resources, structures, machinery, human-intelligent machines, superautomation, robotics, digital computerized operations, etc. JOB CREATION always follows OWNERSHIP CREATION, and the solution is to balance production and consumption with broadened ownership as tectonic shifts in the technologies of production will continue to destroy and degrade (less income) jobs.
The lingering unemployment will persist until we can stimulate and incentivize new capital formation financed so that EVERY American can have access to CAPITAL HOMESTEAD loans (without pledging "past" savings or equity) to invest in FUTURE growth assets that will generate income to pay back the loans. While this will result in a short-term demand for labor, long-term the capital plant once built will less and less labor to sustain. That is why is it is CRITICAL that EVERY American have the equal opportunity to build a viable income-producing capital estate and become stronger self-sufficient individuals and less dependent on taxpayer-supported government welfare.
