Will this forum become extinct

[charlie]

I am from the pre baby boom "lost generation." I think we had the
advantage of being able to move up the ladder faster and make
more money relativelly speaking than those that that followed. We
were also on the tail end of the "defined benefit" pension era. Personally,
I would never have been able to retire early without the generous lump
sum payout that I received. Even at that, I would have been hard
pressed without my sideline laundromat business and substantial
inheritances from my parents and DW's.

Bottom line, I think earlly retirement will be much harder for today's
wannabees.

Cheers,

charlie

 

[NW-Bound]

But let's not confuse courage with bravado. It's one thing to say "the heck with prolonging life at any cost" when one is 50 and healthy, and quite another when the doctor has his hand on the plug. Courage can only be measured in the face of certain death.

The bold-face above is mine. It is true that none of us has been there. However, as many of us here are in our 50s or older, we can't help but notice that our bodies are not young anymore. Our teeth start to fall out, our hair starts to thin. We begin to feel our joints aching. I myself hobbled for a while due to plantar fasciitis. Our blood pressure and cholesterol already rose. I still remember the time I knocked down a bottle of Cognac with a friend during a weeknight, and still was able to show up at work on time the next day. No more! I don't even take long driving trips, leave alone driving at night. I may look young, but I feel old.

So, for me it has been long past the time I have to face the fact that I eventually die, perhaps even sooner than I think (70?). In my case, I was also affected by the ordeal that my father went through. He was never ready for it, and was tormented until the last minute. I loved him, but there was nothing I could do to help, nothing I could do but to be by his bed side and listened. I just wish he could be at peace.

Many of you seem at peace with your own mortality and that's admirable. I hope that I will have the courage to let go when it's time, but I am just human... I can only pray for courage and dignity in my last hours.

I am human too! I just try to talk "the talk", and hope that I will be able to walk "the walk" when it comes to that.

 

[FIREd]

The bold-face above is mine. It is true that none of us has been there. However, as many of us here are in our 50s or older, we can't help but notice that our bodies are not young anymore. Our teeth start to fall out, our hair starts to thin. We begin to feel our joints aching. I myself hobbled for a while due to plantar fasciitis. Our blood pressure and cholesterol already rose. I still remember the time I knocked down a bottle of Cognac with a friend during a weeknight, and still was able to show up at work on time the next day. No more! I don't even take long driving trips, leave alone driving at night. I may look young, but I feel old.

So, for me it has been long past the time I have to face the fact that I eventually die, perhaps even sooner than I think (70?). In my case, I was also affected by the ordeal that my father went through. He was never ready for it, and was tormented until the last minute. I loved him, but there was nothing I could do to help, nothing I could do but to be by his bed side and listened. I just wish he could be at peace.

My point is that, nobody, not even one's closest family members, can truly understand what one goes through on one's death bed. I have learned long ago that we are truly alone when facing our own mortality. I have had a taste of it several years ago and I know for a fact that no one in my family, not even my wife, can relate to what I have been through.

 

[NW-Bound]

You are right that no one but the patient knows how it feels. However, what traumatic experience you went through was not the same as what happened to my father. You were young and you obviously recovered. My father died mainly of old age, when the body gets worn out and tired. It is the latter case when I talk about accepting one's fate.

As an example, if an auto accident victim's life is hanging by a thread, I would certainly hope for him to recover. I would cheer him or her on, whether we were related or not.

But if I were on a death bed, with kidney and liver failures, with fluid building up in the lungs and the diaphragm, causing my belly to be distended and had to be drained with inserted tubes, my heart kept going by two pace makers, all muscles in my body having dissolved and my arms and legs becoming literally skin and bones, being fed intravenously and also by a feeding tube through the nose, not being able to swallow, nor being able to turn in bed, the immunity so weak that a fever caused by a systemic infection of drug-resistant staph raged on for weeks despite constant injection of vancomycin which was called the drug of last resort, well I think I would want to call it quit. Short for God to appear by bed side to save him, there was no hope.

That was what I was talking about, how older patients like my father died. I am preparing myself, just in case.

 

[ziggy29]

Lots of young folks say they wouldn't want to live the life of a 90 year old. That sentiment is rarer among 89 year olds.

Maybe. But I think that's because we (collectively) often associate being 90 with being feeble, infirm, in pain, losing our hearing and/or sight, unable to take care of themselves and that sort of thing. And in some cases it might be a desire to not outlive their kids or their money.

I think most people would like to have longevity if it came with good health and a high quality of life.

 

[Martha]

Maybe. But I think that's because we (collectively) often associate being 90 with being feeble, infirm, in pain, losing our hearing and/or sight, unable to take care of themselves and that sort of thing. And in some cases it might be a desire to not outlive their kids or their money.

I think most people would like to have longevity if it came with good health and a high quality of life.

You adapt to what you have. My father was feeble, infirm and unable to fully care for himself in his early 60s. But he loved life and wanted it to continue.

 

[nun]

Well, back to the original question for a moment: I'm trying to get my kids started toward ER by funding Roth IRAs for each of them. I will continue to do so as long as I'm financially able. I prefer to give them an inheritance now than after I'm not around to see it help them.

Part of my reason for asking the original question was not just the decrease in job benefits, but also the relative drop in salaries and the financial pressures on families that makes it increasingly difficult to save for retirement. I think the forum will continue as the LBYM approach to life is the real key to ER, but maybe the average age of ER will go up and we'll adjust our lifestyle expectations.

 

[W2R]

You adapt to what you have. My father was feeble, infirm and unable to fully care for himself in his early 60s. But he loved life and wanted it to continue.

Exactly. My mother was the same, in her 90's. She was in a wheelchair or in bed much of the day, and nearly blind, and her hearing wasn't what it once was, but her mind was still active and rational. She told me at 97 that although she felt at peace with the universe and was ready to die when her time came, that also she loved life and enjoyed each day in the meantime. She had friends and activities and fun even when she was 97, and only began to wander mentally a few weeks before her death at almost 98 as her various body parts/systems started shutting down.

 

[Independent]

Part of my reason for asking the original question was not just the decrease in job benefits, but also the relative drop in salaries and the financial pressures on families that makes it increasingly difficult to save for retirement. I think the forum will continue as the LBYM approach to life is the real key to ER, but maybe the average age of ER will go up and we'll adjust our lifestyle expectations.

I'm not sure that I see "drop in salaries and financial pressures", at least compared to 50 years ago.

IMO, the number of retirees we can afford is driven by the number of workers. If couples have three children each, their generation can retire with more years left than a similar generation that had two children for each couple. This is pretty obvious when we look at Social Security, but I think it's equally true when we think about funding retirement with private savings -- e.g. the return on stocks is going to be pretty lousy if employers have to spend most of their revenue competing for a small labor pool.

I hope the answer is that employers feel better about older parttime workers. That's a win-win, but so far it seems that most only want employees who are willing to run hard for 45 hours a week.

 

[nun]

I'm not sure that I see "drop in salaries and financial pressures", at least compared to 50 years ago.

I should have said "real wages" and not salaries. Real wages have declined since the early 70s and with the drop in pensions, 401k matches and increasing health care costs it's going to be increasingly difficult to be in the position to ER. I'm not sure that the concept of ER even existed before the 1970s. Let's face it for most of history 99.9% of people had to work until they died.

 

[ziggy29]

I should have said "real wages" and not salaries. Real wages have declined since the early 70s and with the drop in pensions, 401k matches and increasing health care costs it's going to be increasingly difficult to be in the position to ER. I'm not sure that the concept of ER even existed before the 1970s. Let's face it for most of history 99.9% of people had to work until they died.

Which is all the more reason why I've long thought "early retirement" as a realistic goal for a majority of the American middle class was/is a temporary blip created by a perfect storm of fortunate economic and geopolitical events, primarily related to a post-WW2 period when the most other major industrial economies were broken apart by war and the "emerging markets" hadn't begun to emerge yet. It was a time when the U.S.A. was rebuilding much of the world with very little significant global competition.

Those days were a fortunate fluke for the American worker born at the right time who benefited from it, and those days are over -- Europe and Japan were rebuilt and the emerging markets with huge amounts of low-cost human capital emerged. Now we're suffering the hangover caused by using debt to pretend it was sustainable for decades after it was increasingly obvious that the rules were changing and that it's not 1960 any more.

 

[samclem]

IMO, the number of retirees we can afford is driven by the number of workers.

If all those workers are making $20K a year, having more of them won't allow us to support a significantly higher number of retirees.

Real wages are headed down due to global competition, and there's no stopping that. The best we can do is make ourselves as competitive as possible--with a first-rate education system and a business climate that encourages innovation and work.

Trying to legislate some type of artificial standard of living (minimum wage laws, mandatory benefits, government entitlements, tarriffs, import quotas, etc) is only going to allow the developing world to outcompete us at an accelerating rate, and hasten the reduction in US living standards. We've had a short-lived temporary advantage since WW-II. We made good use of some of it (e.g. developed a top-notch interstate highway system and good universities and corporate research facilities) and squandered much more of it. Now the playing field is becoming more level across the world, and it's unlikely our grandkids will enjoy the same amount of discretionary income that we and our parents had. On an absolute level, their lives will still be better than our parents (who had a 45" television 30 years ago? Who at that time could cross the country in 8 hours at a cost of less than one day's wages?). But relative to the rest of the world, they'll be sinking. From a big-picture perspective, that's great news--doubling the per capita income in Asia or Africa will probably buy a lot more "good" and happiness than an equivalent pot of money spread among the inhabitants of North America and Europe.

 

[RonBoyd]

Real wages are headed down due to global competition, and there's no stopping that.

And don't forget Technology.

The business organization of the future will have two employees -- a man and a dog.

The job of the man will be to feed the dog. The job of the dog will be to prevent the man from touching the machines.

Warren Bennis

 

[Independent]

I should have said "real wages" and not salaries. Real wages have declined since the early 70s and with the drop in pensions, 401k matches and increasing health care costs it's going to be increasingly difficult to be in the position to ER. I'm not sure that the concept of ER even existed before the 1970s. Let's face it for most of history 99.9% of people had to work until they died.

My source is this Census site: Historical Income Tables — People
I have to combine tables P-16, 17, 25, and 26 to get a picture. But I think it says male wages were stagnant since the early 70's, in spite of rising average educational levels. Female wages went up, probably due to more education and less discrimination (maybe one reason males were stagnant). I think real wages went up significantly before then.

This is cash wages, adjusted for CPI. So I don't think I need to make another adjustment for medical expenses.

I think the idea that "I should have a lot of children so I have someone to take care of me in my old age" has been around for a very long time. However, the concept that median income people can quit working entirely while they are still healthy is a "modern" idea. I'd agree that most didn't achieve it in the US until SS got fairly mature, and even then only a minority had something significant beyond SS.

 

[Independent]

If all those workers are making $20K a year, having more of them won't allow us to support a significantly higher number of retirees.

Real wages are headed down due to global competition, and there's no stopping that. The best we can do is make ourselves as competitive as possible--with a first-rate education system and a business climate that encourages innovation and work.

Trying to legislate some type of artificial standard of living (minimum wage laws, mandatory benefits, government entitlements) is only going to allow the developing world to outcompete us at an accelerating rate, and hasten the reduction in US living standards. We've had a short-lived temporary advantage since WW-II. We made good use of some of it (e.g. developed a top-notch interstate highway system and good universities and corporate research facilities) and squandered much more of it. Now the playing field is becoming more level across the world, and it's unlikely our grandkids will enjoy the same amount of discretionary income that we and our parents had. On an absolute level, their lives will still be better than our parents (who had a 45" television 30 years ago? Who at that time could cross the country in 8 hours at a cost of less than one day's wages?). But relative to the rest of the world, they'll be sinking. From a big-picture perspective, that's great news--doubling the per capita income in Asia or Africa will probably buy a lot more "good" and happiness than an equivalent pot of money spread among the inhabitants of North America and Europe.

I'll agree - retirees don't get much benefit from more workers if the workers aren't very productive.I assume that's what you mean by $20k. In particular, we don't "save SS" by importing a lot of unskilled laborers.

Theoretically, I shouldn't care about relative incomes. If I have a high absolute standard of living, I should be happy that more Chinese and Indians can match me. OTOH, I may be more worried about military imbalance. And keeping my absolute income up means better and better technology so I can live well with a smaller share of the world's raw materials.

I guess I see the retirement future as whether technology can outrun demographics, with a couple side issues of whether we measure ourselves against sustainable consumption, or the un-sustainable we've supported by borrowing.

 

[swampwiz]

What you could see too is the amount of people ERing overseas to take advantage of a lower cost of living and cheaper health care.

Been there, done that. I had a baby "blue" tooth that did not have a permanent tooth behind it that finally had to go at age 39-1/2, at which time I got an implant. I got the implant base put in by an American dental surgeon for $1500. I could have gotten the cap put on by an American dentist for $1000. I got a Ukrainian dentist to put one on for $100.

Also, another time in Ukraine I got punched in the nose and got an X-ray done - cost: $1.40.

 

[randyman65]

Also, another time in Ukraine I got punched in the nose and got an X-ray done - cost: $1.40.

Jeez, I can't imagine why someone would do that...

 

[ls99]

We'll get digital TX/RX/GPS nanotechnology implanted in our forearms and noise cancelling microphones implanted in our upper lips. We will be interconnected wirelessly and able to use speech-to-text translators to do our posts in real time, and text-to-speech for the reading them. We will hear each other in full duplex on real time multichannel comm systems.
[end of geek-burst]
A lot of this technology already exists stand alone, it just has not been fully integrated for this purpose. Oops, I just did a public release of my next invention.
Stuff like this is not so far away, folks.
Maybe one of our Young Dreamers will see this post and do the math and design a system. Have fun!

Why do all of that? Use telepathy. Of course need to have spam blocking in place. And mind your thoughts, and other non-public ideas.

 

[haha]

Medical care is an interesting problem - medicare is spending an amazing amount keeping MIL ticking - her clock is running down, but she's still cogent and interested to go out and watch the space shuttle go over - still, could probably keep a thousand or two African children alive on what she costs.

Thank your lucky stars that these Africans haven't yet figured out how to vote in American elections.

Maybe remember too, that much African Aid winds up being sold by the army or political leaders, and the proceeds stashed in a Swiss bank.

Ha

 

[randyman65]

They don't need to - the AARP does. It is ironic that the most vocal opponents of health care reform are those on Medicare. I guess if they get theirs it really shouldn't matter if anyone else is cared for. Its the same Social Security model.

 

[RonBoyd]

It is ironic that the most vocal opponents of health care reform are those on Medicare.

We are talking about the broad category, "Health Care Reform," aren't we? Do you have evidence to support your statement? Granted, I haven't really been listening (not that interested) but, other than the "kill grandpa" foolishness, I haven't heard anything like you suggest.

I quickly looked at Senior Citizens News and Information Daily On The Web at SeniorJournal.com and found nothing. I try to read everything AARP publishes (not the junk mail) but, again, may have missed it.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Many of us on here can FIRE because we save, LBYM and invest sensibly. But big factors are also the good benefits like pensions and health care we have from our emplyers that younger workers no longer get. So my question is simple. With the death of these benefits will anyone be able to FIRE in the future?

Eventually yes. To answer your question. I feel ER is a short term situation in the big scheme of things. I am grateful I will experience it. However, I feel down the road for those little ones I see every now and then. They will handle the heavy burden. Shame on me.

 

[randyman65]

We are talking about the broad category, "Health Care Reform," aren't we? Do you have evidence to support your statement? Granted, I haven't really been listening (not that interested) but, other than the "kill grandpa" foolishness, I haven't heard anything like you suggest.

I'm speaking from the experience of three recent town hall meetings (two of which were held by local congressmen). To a person, the ones screaming were senior citizens. And they were screaming loudly. The most common refrain was literally "Leave my Medicare alone!". I seriously doubt that any of them actually knew anything at all about any proposals.

 

[RonBoyd]

I seriously doubt that any of them actually knew anything at all about any proposals.

Yeah. Them and other "spokespersons" for us.

 

[HFWR]

I seriously doubt that any of them actually knew anything at all about any proposals.

And there are plenty of people/PACs/lobbyists/pundits/politicians that like it that way.

The mushroom theory...