7 ms·

Isn't it funny? The idea that you could spend you entire professional career at, say, GM, retire at 65, and live out your years on a comfortable pension + socia

Isn't it funny? The idea that you could spend you entire professional career at, say, GM, retire at 65, and live out your years on a comfortable pension + social security, seems so amazingly quaint and outdated. I can hardly believe that that was the universal expectation in this country just a few short decades ago, but my elders insist it was true. Nobody in my peer group (millenials, I think we're called) seriously thinks they are going to see any of the money we are paying into social security. Pension? What's that again? On the other hand, the expectation that we are going to be working forever seems to have made us dwell a lot more on what job fulfillment actually means, which is probably a good thing--not too many people I know are willing to put up with the sort of "deferred happiness" model that prevailed in earlier generations.

jerf 16y ago
Historically speaking, as in, over the past several thousand years, what was your best retirement plan? Loving children. Are we returning to that world? To be honest, though, I think things are not as bleak as we think. We are fantastically, fantastically wealthy, overflowing with technology and the tech keeps coming and growing. We are not poorer than our parents; we are substantially wealthier but we have accumulated a proportionally greater load of parasitic loss and bad commitments, and a proportionally greater idea of what we "should" be able to afford. (It is no win to be twice as wealthy as your parents if you try to spend three times as much.) Defined-benefit plans will have to come to be seen as a peculiarly-20th-century delusion, as will the idea that the government is an unlimited charge card.
- api 16y ago
  We are fantastically wealthy, but we have a gigantic parasitic entity that sucks most of our surplus wealth away and burns it in endless pointless wars and in building bridges to nowhere and similar things.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    I could not tell whether you were talking about Government or about Wall Street. :)
    - DennisP 16y ago
      There's a difference?
kiddo 16y ago
I hope this attitude about not expecting to see any of the money you're paying into social security ends soon. You're paying money in and so you should get it back when you're older. If this young generation gives up on getting their money back then their fears will come true. It's politics. You get what you collectively ask for. Bottom line: don't lower your expectations. Demand, and you should get.
- billswift 16y ago
  >Demand, and you should get. The mentality of a mugger.
  - kiddo 16y ago
    ...if you take the last phrase completely out of context.
    - billswift 16y ago
      It is completely within the context of what you wrote in reality. Money is taken from some people and given to other people. There is no moral difference between the mugger's threat to shoot you for not forking over and the government's threat to take your property or throw you in jail for not forking over. And the recipient/beneficiary of the theft is a thief, even if you/they are too gutless to do your/their own threatening. Maybe you are one of those idiots who actually believes in the "Social Security Trust Fund" and you get your own money back; but that belief does not make it true.
      - brazzy 16y ago
        There is no moral difference between the mugger's threat to shoot you for not forking over and the government's threat to take your property or throw you in jail for not forking over. The difference is that the government's actions are based on laws, which were passed by elected representatives and thus indirectly by the public. Not "forking over" to the government is the same as not paying a debt and claiming that you didn't personally agree to contracts being actually binding. Maybe you're one of those idiots who actually believe you can have a functioning society without rules that everyone has to adher to even if they personally don't agree with all of them, but that belief does not make it true.

jerf 16y ago

Historically speaking, as in, over the past several thousand years, what was your best retirement plan? Loving children. Are we returning to that world? To be honest, though, I think things are not as bleak as we think. We are fantastically, fantastically wealthy, overflowing with technology and the tech keeps coming and growing. We are not poorer than our parents; we are substantially wealthier but we have accumulated a proportionally greater load of parasitic loss and bad commitments, and a proportionally greater idea of what we "should" be able to afford. (It is no win to be twice as wealthy as your parents if you try to spend three times as much.) Defined-benefit plans will have to come to be seen as a peculiarly-20th-century delusion, as will the idea that the government is an unlimited charge card.

api 16y ago
We are fantastically wealthy, but we have a gigantic parasitic entity that sucks most of our surplus wealth away and burns it in endless pointless wars and in building bridges to nowhere and similar things.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  I could not tell whether you were talking about Government or about Wall Street. :)
  - DennisP 16y ago
    There's a difference?

kiddo 16y ago

I hope this attitude about not expecting to see any of the money you're paying into social security ends soon. You're paying money in and so you should get it back when you're older. If this young generation gives up on getting their money back then their fears will come true. It's politics. You get what you collectively ask for. Bottom line: don't lower your expectations. Demand, and you should get.

billswift 16y ago
>Demand, and you should get. The mentality of a mugger.
- kiddo 16y ago
  ...if you take the last phrase completely out of context.
  - billswift 16y ago
    It is completely within the context of what you wrote in reality. Money is taken from some people and given to other people. There is no moral difference between the mugger's threat to shoot you for not forking over and the government's threat to take your property or throw you in jail for not forking over. And the recipient/beneficiary of the theft is a thief, even if you/they are too gutless to do your/their own threatening. Maybe you are one of those idiots who actually believes in the "Social Security Trust Fund" and you get your own money back; but that belief does not make it true.
    - brazzy 16y ago
      There is no moral difference between the mugger's threat to shoot you for not forking over and the government's threat to take your property or throw you in jail for not forking over. The difference is that the government's actions are based on laws, which were passed by elected representatives and thus indirectly by the public. Not "forking over" to the government is the same as not paying a debt and claiming that you didn't personally agree to contracts being actually binding. Maybe you're one of those idiots who actually believe you can have a functioning society without rules that everyone has to adher to even if they personally don't agree with all of them, but that belief does not make it true.