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I would not mind seeing this expanded. I have an observation to offer, based on "anecdata" and the like. Let's assume that the Baby Boomer generation is that
by at_a_remove 6y ago
I would not mind seeing this expanded.
I have an observation to offer, based on "anecdata" and the like. Let's assume that the Baby Boomer generation is that standard group born between 1946 and 1964. Where I worked in 2008, I noticed a lot of the Baby Boomer crowd taking a bath on their retirement funds due to, well, 2008. Lousy investments, house-flipping, and so on. Many of them grumbled about having to delay their retirements considerably. I saw this happen in effect as these people continued to work, often a decade longer than their stated departure dates. They didn't have mandatory retirement, and so they kept plugging along.
I believe this 2008 effect, combined with the relatively small cohort for Gen X, has left the Baby Boomers in power politically, in business, and in university still, leaving Gen X waiting for open positions to climb up into, but they haven't opened up yet. Indeed, with the youngest Boomers at age fifty-six, they will still be a forced to be reckoned with for at least another decade, while Gen X grows stagnant.
We're a small bunch, so aside from bones thrown to us like Stranger Things or Ready Player One, we are largely ignored. We will most likely be surpassed by the Millennials. Part of this, I think, may be slightly due to the kind of fatalistic passive nature which seems to permeate much of Gen X, who are, in some sense, still waiting for the bombs to drop, assuming the acid rain, killer bees, or GRID doesn't get us first.
Call it a wild suspicion, but I think Gen X will be a sort of forgotten bunch a century from now, and the lack of mandatory retirement may be part of it.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago> Where I worked in 2008, I noticed a lot of the Baby Boomer crowd taking a bath on their retirement funds due to, well, 2008. How did they take a bath on their retirement funds? Did they sell everything at its lows for some reason and ignore all advice about how to save for retirement? We’ve had 10%+ returns for a decade now, they should be fine assuming they had adequate savings before 2008. I suspect most people never had adequate savings to begin with, and 2008 didn’t have anything to do with their problem, which is they simply never saved or earned enough money to retire at the quality of life they expect.
- saalweachter 6y agoThe oldest Baby Boomers were starting to retire by then. There are lots of variables, but if you're drawing down your retirement funds and the stock market is down significantly for a long period of time you may end up either having several lean years or drawing down faster while the market is down.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIt was down for 3 or 4 years. If that handicapped your retirement, then you didn’t have enough to begin with.
- mulmen 6y agoHow could you know that in 2008?
- lotsofpulp 6y agoI don’t understand the question? The original claim was people took a bath on their retirement savings. Which is only true if they sold all their retirement assets. Therefore, I don’t think it’s accurate to say the 2008 recession caused people to lose their retirement savings. Selling at the bottom of a market would cause one to lose their retirement savings.
- ajmurmann 6y agoThey didn't know it was the bottom. It could have been the new normal. However, to me that would imply retiring 4 years later and not 10. One they market turned around retirement was back...
- MandieD 6y agoMy parents, like a lot of unsophisticated middle-class investors, panic sold in 2008. In previous generations, they’d have had defined benefit pensions and probably not been involved in the stock market at all, or only moderately. And they probably had some crappy funds with excessive expenses, to boot.
- gedy 6y agoYeah, speaking broadly, we are like the first bunch with no pensions, and before 401Ks were a cultural 'thing'.