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“Want to work”. They don’t want to work, they want a life that they should be able to have at that age after working most of their lives. They are being pushe

“Want to work”. They don’t want to work, they want a life that they should be able to have at that age after working most of their lives. They are being pushed back into work because their savings disappeared in the financial crisis.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
As the worker:retiree ratio goes from 5 to less than 2 in the coming decades, I hope people realize this will be more of a luxury to retire.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Nah. They want the life their parents had and deprived them of, and many were dumb enough to move from their homes which they purchased cheaply decades ago to buy new homes which are usually more expensive and carry a much higher property tax bill. Their folks are the ones who all worked and earned pensions and then revoked them for their kids because they were "too expensive" to maintain. The "Greatest Generation" lived high on the hog and many of the Boomers who were not fortunate enough to retire on a pension are the ones who ended up paying for it. If you want to know why Boomers are so heartless when it comes to the plight of the generations that came after them, this is a big reason why. They just assume that life is going to suck regardless of what you do and would rather remain cogs fixed in the wheel than do anything to actually improve something for everyone else.
- 0des 5y ago
  The way you use the word Boomer here is with such derision. What happened to you man, is this just you or is it a generational thing or what
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    You can go to Reddit on like the anti-work sub and read all about how all the worlds problems are from boomers. And boomers had it so easy and pulled the ladder up after them. On the other hand, I know a lot of people that have way better lives than their parents, me included.
    - lovich 5y ago
      If you are not in tech, its not too common. Fuck even in tech, I make the same nominal amount as my father did when he was 5 years younger than I am now, working in the mid 90s with no degree.
      - brianwawok 4y ago
        Interesting, that is not my experience at all.
    - vlunkr 5y ago
      Yes, on Reddit, boomers and landlords have turned into huge Boogeymen.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Boomers are directly and almost solely responsible for the current partisan mechanics undermining American civics. They've also held on to power far too long, and impose way too much influence for people whose judgment and behavior over the last 5 decades have seriously endangered the continuity of anything resembling principled American government. Some of us peons are a little pissed at the people who looted the system and kicked the can to future generations. The pandemic response is a perfect example of the ineptitude and lackadaisical attitude those in power have towards their responsibility to maintain and preserve the things that make America good. Nobody will be held responsible for the negligence, corruption, or outright malicious injury.
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      I don't think working class Boomers are to blame. As always, it's the ruling class, which is now a gerontocracy as well.
      - wyre 5y ago
        The ruling class is elected by working class boomers
      - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        The working class Boomers are the ones who listened to Rush Limbaugh for 30+ years and internalized weaponized stupidity. It was this brash idiocy and disrespect for opposing voices that lead to the "tea party" Republicans largely taking over that party and ousting anyone who was even half conciliatory to the other side. It's gotten so bad that the corporatists in the party are worried about losing any semblance of representation, much less control. At least half the Republican caucus doesn't believe in any of the crap they're saying, but it plays good on TV and fills their pockets with money. Ted Cruz is not a moron, but he plays one on television because it keeps his campaign coffers full. Democrats in turn started to elect less moderate members. If you could take the 1980s Congress who were still largely Greatest Generation types and transport them to today to view the insane nonsense going on, they would be disappointed by both the process and the Democrats but horrified by the Republicans.
  - tejtm 5y ago
    divide and conquer, label with a broad brush it whitewashes the details. The concept there there needs to be an defined age gradient with distinct differentiation steps categorizing swaths of humanity that otherwise would just be "us" ... we the regular people, is just one more distraction.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    Derision? Maybe read what I said. I think I'm pretty accurately describing their generation, aka the generation of the people who raised me. Note that I am specifically NOT casting blame on them for the eradication of pension programs, because while you can accuse them of being against them to a degree in the public sector, it was their parents' generation who decided that private pensions were great for themselves but not sustainable for their kids. The "greatest generation" gets whitewashed at the expense of their children, when they REALLY had it the easiest. Sure, they had a world war and that sucked. They also got the greatest economic advantage in American history along with a government eager to give free and subsidized stuff away, and decided that it was too expensive to continue.
    - 0des 5y ago
      > If you were white, anyway. And therrrrre it is.
    - 0des 5y ago
      I'm glad you removed the racialized remark from this post, it was cheap and in poor taste and not at all pertinent. Thank you. Unfortunately I cannot remove the comment where I quoted part of your remark to respond to it.
      - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        Nope. It was neither cheap or in poor taste. It was 100% accurate. I just removed it because I decided I didn't want to deal with kneejerk responses from the history-bereft. During WWII, there was a moratorium on homebuilding because the resources were needed elsewhere. After the war, the GI bill "guaranteed" that veterans would be able to buy homes at zero percent interest and that they would be able to get college or technical educations. Everyone else got to buy homes at very low interest rates for the most part. If you were white, that is. The reality was that the US government was completely fine with redlining and given that these companies that paired with the government programs weren't building new homes in minority-majority areas, there were 67000 or so families that got to take advantage of the GI bill's homebuying program, and less than 100 of them were people of color. Jim Crow, of course, took care of their ability to access educations, and of course they were still 20 years out from being able to even vote. It was a gigantic giveaway to whites at the expense of the people of color who went to war and paid their taxes and got very little to show for it. That had a huge effect on future generations. The people who wanted to buy homes had to do it for higher costs while simultaneously not being able to enjoy the same level of education. The difference in opportunity costs and actual financial costs was staggering.
ceeplusplus 5y ago
Please. The stock market went up an incredible amount over the course of the pandemic. Most retirees with any degree of savings profited immensely. The financial crisis didn't kill people's savings either, if you look at a graph of the S&P500. On top of that, these people are likely to own their home which means monthly expenditures are very low as rent/mortgage comprises the largest source of spending for most people.
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  Even though this sounds crazy - a good number of people close to retirement age (I spoke to them about it) panic sold a lot of their stocks during the crisis.
missedthecue 5y ago
If your savings disappeared, I don't see how it's the system's fault. Houses and stocks skyrocketed over the past few years. Really the only way you'd have run out of money is: 1. you had all your retirement money in a checking account 2. you never bothered to look at your annual spend, total savings, and calculate a burn rate
cperciva 5y ago
To the contrary, I know a lot of people who are financially secure and don't need to work, but nonetheless want to work because they're bored and/or working gives them as sense of purpose. Some of them fill their lives with volunteerism, but some people find that traditional volunteer activities aren't good matches for their skills -- if you retire from a career as a prison guard, it's hard to find a position as a volunteer prison guard six months later when you're bored, for example. (But you might find a contract job training prison guards -- indeed, someone with decades of experience as a prison guard is an ideal candidate for such a job.)

mensetmanusman 5y ago

As the worker:retiree ratio goes from 5 to less than 2 in the coming decades, I hope people realize this will be more of a luxury to retire.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

Nah. They want the life their parents had and deprived them of, and many were dumb enough to move from their homes which they purchased cheaply decades ago to buy new homes which are usually more expensive and carry a much higher property tax bill. Their folks are the ones who all worked and earned pensions and then revoked them for their kids because they were "too expensive" to maintain. The "Greatest Generation" lived high on the hog and many of the Boomers who were not fortunate enough to retire on a pension are the ones who ended up paying for it. If you want to know why Boomers are so heartless when it comes to the plight of the generations that came after them, this is a big reason why. They just assume that life is going to suck regardless of what you do and would rather remain cogs fixed in the wheel than do anything to actually improve something for everyone else.

0des 5y ago
The way you use the word Boomer here is with such derision. What happened to you man, is this just you or is it a generational thing or what
- brianwawok 5y ago
  You can go to Reddit on like the anti-work sub and read all about how all the worlds problems are from boomers. And boomers had it so easy and pulled the ladder up after them. On the other hand, I know a lot of people that have way better lives than their parents, me included.
  - lovich 5y ago
    If you are not in tech, its not too common. Fuck even in tech, I make the same nominal amount as my father did when he was 5 years younger than I am now, working in the mid 90s with no degree.
    - brianwawok 4y ago
      Interesting, that is not my experience at all.
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    Yes, on Reddit, boomers and landlords have turned into huge Boogeymen.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Boomers are directly and almost solely responsible for the current partisan mechanics undermining American civics. They've also held on to power far too long, and impose way too much influence for people whose judgment and behavior over the last 5 decades have seriously endangered the continuity of anything resembling principled American government. Some of us peons are a little pissed at the people who looted the system and kicked the can to future generations. The pandemic response is a perfect example of the ineptitude and lackadaisical attitude those in power have towards their responsibility to maintain and preserve the things that make America good. Nobody will be held responsible for the negligence, corruption, or outright malicious injury.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    I don't think working class Boomers are to blame. As always, it's the ruling class, which is now a gerontocracy as well.
    - wyre 5y ago
      The ruling class is elected by working class boomers
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      The working class Boomers are the ones who listened to Rush Limbaugh for 30+ years and internalized weaponized stupidity. It was this brash idiocy and disrespect for opposing voices that lead to the "tea party" Republicans largely taking over that party and ousting anyone who was even half conciliatory to the other side. It's gotten so bad that the corporatists in the party are worried about losing any semblance of representation, much less control. At least half the Republican caucus doesn't believe in any of the crap they're saying, but it plays good on TV and fills their pockets with money. Ted Cruz is not a moron, but he plays one on television because it keeps his campaign coffers full. Democrats in turn started to elect less moderate members. If you could take the 1980s Congress who were still largely Greatest Generation types and transport them to today to view the insane nonsense going on, they would be disappointed by both the process and the Democrats but horrified by the Republicans.
- tejtm 5y ago
  divide and conquer, label with a broad brush it whitewashes the details. The concept there there needs to be an defined age gradient with distinct differentiation steps categorizing swaths of humanity that otherwise would just be "us" ... we the regular people, is just one more distraction.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  Derision? Maybe read what I said. I think I'm pretty accurately describing their generation, aka the generation of the people who raised me. Note that I am specifically NOT casting blame on them for the eradication of pension programs, because while you can accuse them of being against them to a degree in the public sector, it was their parents' generation who decided that private pensions were great for themselves but not sustainable for their kids. The "greatest generation" gets whitewashed at the expense of their children, when they REALLY had it the easiest. Sure, they had a world war and that sucked. They also got the greatest economic advantage in American history along with a government eager to give free and subsidized stuff away, and decided that it was too expensive to continue.
  - 0des 5y ago
    > If you were white, anyway. And therrrrre it is.
  - 0des 5y ago
    I'm glad you removed the racialized remark from this post, it was cheap and in poor taste and not at all pertinent. Thank you. Unfortunately I cannot remove the comment where I quoted part of your remark to respond to it.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      Nope. It was neither cheap or in poor taste. It was 100% accurate. I just removed it because I decided I didn't want to deal with kneejerk responses from the history-bereft. During WWII, there was a moratorium on homebuilding because the resources were needed elsewhere. After the war, the GI bill "guaranteed" that veterans would be able to buy homes at zero percent interest and that they would be able to get college or technical educations. Everyone else got to buy homes at very low interest rates for the most part. If you were white, that is. The reality was that the US government was completely fine with redlining and given that these companies that paired with the government programs weren't building new homes in minority-majority areas, there were 67000 or so families that got to take advantage of the GI bill's homebuying program, and less than 100 of them were people of color. Jim Crow, of course, took care of their ability to access educations, and of course they were still 20 years out from being able to even vote. It was a gigantic giveaway to whites at the expense of the people of color who went to war and paid their taxes and got very little to show for it. That had a huge effect on future generations. The people who wanted to buy homes had to do it for higher costs while simultaneously not being able to enjoy the same level of education. The difference in opportunity costs and actual financial costs was staggering.

ceeplusplus 5y ago

Please. The stock market went up an incredible amount over the course of the pandemic. Most retirees with any degree of savings profited immensely. The financial crisis didn't kill people's savings either, if you look at a graph of the S&P500. On top of that, these people are likely to own their home which means monthly expenditures are very low as rent/mortgage comprises the largest source of spending for most people.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago
Even though this sounds crazy - a good number of people close to retirement age (I spoke to them about it) panic sold a lot of their stocks during the crisis.

missedthecue 5y ago

If your savings disappeared, I don't see how it's the system's fault. Houses and stocks skyrocketed over the past few years. Really the only way you'd have run out of money is: 1. you had all your retirement money in a checking account 2. you never bothered to look at your annual spend, total savings, and calculate a burn rate

cperciva 5y ago

To the contrary, I know a lot of people who are financially secure and don't need to work, but nonetheless want to work because they're bored and/or working gives them as sense of purpose. Some of them fill their lives with volunteerism, but some people find that traditional volunteer activities aren't good matches for their skills -- if you retire from a career as a prison guard, it's hard to find a position as a volunteer prison guard six months later when you're bored, for example. (But you might find a contract job training prison guards -- indeed, someone with decades of experience as a prison guard is an ideal candidate for such a job.)