Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/rayjunk
January 3, 2014
|
Millions of older Americans say they will never be able to retire.
They simply don’t have the savings. According to CNN, “Roughly
three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with little
to no emergency savings…50% have less than a three-month cushion and
27% had no savings at all….” (“
76% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck“, CNN Money)
“No savings at all”?
That’s
right. So retirement is out of the question. A sizable chunk of the
adult population is going to punch a clock until they keel-over in the
office parking lot and get hauled off in the company dumpster. And those
are the lucky ones, the so called baby boomers. By the time we get to
the millennials it’ll be even worse because the economy will have been
ravaged by 25 or 30 years of austerity leaving the proles to scrape by
on hardtack and gruel. Pensions are already being looted, Social
Security is under fire, and any small stipend that supports the poor,
the unemployed, or the infirm is going to be terminated. That’s why
everyone is so down-in-the-mouth, because their expectations of the
future are so bleak. Check this out from Business Insider:
“For
millennials, the situation is even more grim. Compared to their parents
at their age, the under-30 set is worth only half as much. And while
this is a sobering reminder of the scale of the Great Recession’s impact
on younger generations, it’s not the whole story. These households were
actually falling behind even before the stock market and housing crash,
researchers found.
Young people not only saw their wages stagnate
or drop but also suffered a rise in fixed costs. They leave college
with an average $27,000 debt load and have a harder time finding jobs
that pay well, while facing more expensive health care and housing
costs.
“If these generations cannot accumulate wealth, they will
be less able to support themselves when unexpected emergencies arise or
when they eventually retire,” the study authors said. “This financial
uncertainty could reverberate throughout the economy, since
entrepreneurial activity, saving, and investment tend to build on a base
of confidence and growing wealth.”(“AMERICA IN DECLINE: Young People Are Much Worse Off Than Their Parents Were At That Age“, Business Insider)
An
entire generation of young people have been raped and discarded by
their government and all the author cares about is the impact it will
have on personal consumption.
Go figure. And there’s a larger
point here too, which is that Americans have always believed that their
children would enjoy a higher standard of living than their own. Until
now, that is. Now most people think things are going to get worse, much
worse. You see it in all the surveys. Expectations have changed, the
future looks darker than ever before, and people are scared. Check this
out from CNN:
“Things appear to be looking up for the economy.
On
Wednesday the Federal Reserve felt confident enough to begin slowly
withdrawing the huge economic stimulus the central bank has been pumping
into the economy.
Unemployment is the lowest in five years.
Economic growth picked up recently. The housing sector — which got us
into this mess in the first place — is bouncing back. Home sales, prices
and construction are all on the rise.
Auto sales recently had
their strongest growth since 2006. Gas prices have fallen dramatically
this year, and the stock market has risen sharply.
And there’s some reason to be hopeful for next year too. The Fed announced a slightly improved outlook for unemployment in 2014.
But
things aren’t always as good as they seem. For many Americans, all the
good news in the larger economy isn’t translating over to everyday life.
Only 24% of the public believe economic conditions are improving, while
nearly four-in-ten say the nation’s economy is actually getting worse,
according to a recent CNN poll.” (“Is the economy as good as it looks?“, CNN Money)
That’s
right; no one is buying the “recovery” crappola any more. They all know
it’s BS. And a closer look at the CNN survey tells you why.
“Looking
specifically at the economy, 39% feel that the economy is still in a
downturn, up six points from April. Only 24% believe that an economic
recovery is under way. Thirty-six percent are in the middle – they don’t
think we’re in a recovery but they believe conditions have stabilized.”
(CNN Politics)
So,
3 out of 4 people think we’re either still in a severe slump or running
in place.(stagnation) That’s your recovery in a nutshell. And it
explains why people hate bankers, Wall Street, and Congress. It also
explains why millennials have given up on Obama after finally
acknowledging that the man is a bumptious blowhard who’s never lifted a
finger to help the people who shoehorned his worthless keister into
office. Take a look at this from Policy Mic:
“Debt-weary
millennials are disillusioned with Obama’s performance with regard to
the economy, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, his handling
of foreign relations”…
A new poll conducted by Harvard
University’s Institute of Politics has revealed that young Americans’
support for President Barack Obama has reached the lowest point yet.
According to the poll, only 41% of Americans aged 18-29 approve of
Obama’s performance in office, an 11% drop since April.” (“Millennials officially hate Obama. Here’s why“, policymic)
Ahhh, so people are finally waking up to what an unprincipled phony this guy is. Good!
Unfortunately,
ripping Obama won’t pay the bills, which is why so many people are
making painful adjustments in their own lives to make ends meet. Aside
from cutting back on trips to the doctor and setting the thermostat on
“Off”, America’s plenteous graybeards are staying on the job longer than
ever. Here’s a clip from an article in Forbes:
“An alarming 37% of middle class Americans believe they’ll work until they’re too sick or until they die.
Another 34% believes retirement will come at the ripe age of 80…
It’s a grim look at the state of retirement which seems to be getting worse for middle class Americans.
Wells
Fargo WFC -0.09% interviewed 1,000 Americans between age 25 and 75 and
with household income ranging between $25,000 and $99,000. More than
half (59%) said their top day-to-day financial concern is paying the
monthly bills; that’s up from 52% who said the same last year.
“We
do this survey every year and for the past three years, the struggle to
pay bills is a growing concern and the prospect of saving for
retirement looks dim, particularly for those in their prime saving
years,” Laurie Nordquist, head of Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement
and Trust, says in the report.
And here’s something for leaders in
Washington DC to consider: One third of those surveyed said their
primary source of retirement income will come from social security. That
figure gets even bigger for those who make less than $50,000–48% of
those earners say social security is going to be their primary
retirement income.” (“Work Until You Die? More Middle Class Americans Say They Can Never Retire“, Halah Touryalai, Forbes)
How
do you like that, eh? So nearly half the people who make less than
$50,000 are counting on Social Security as their “primary retirement
income.” At the same time, our old buddy Obama is planning to cut Social
Security to keep his criminal friends on Wall Street happy.
That means a whole lot of us are going to be stuck bussing tables at Olive Garden until they carry us out feet first.
Your doing a hechuva job, Barry!
No comments:
Post a Comment