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When No One Retires (hbr.org)
More and more Americans want to work longer -- or have to, given that many aren't saving adequately for retirement. From a report: Before our eyes, the world is undergoing a massive demographic transformation. In many countries, the population is getting old. Very old. Globally, the number of people age 60 and over is projected to double to more than 2 billion by 2050 and those 60 and over will outnumber children under the age of 5. In the United States, about 10,000 people turn 65 each day, and one in five Americans will be 65 or older by 2030. By 2035, Americans of retirement age will eclipse the number of people aged 18 and under for the first time in U.S. history.
[...] Soon, the workforce will include people from as many as five generations ranging in age from teenagers to 80-somethings. Are companies prepared? The short answer is "no." Aging will affect every aspect of business operations -- whether it's talent recruitment, the structure of compensation and benefits, the development of products and services, how innovation is unlocked, how offices and factories are designed, and even how work is structured -- but for some reason, the message just hasn't gotten through. In general, corporate leaders have yet to invest the time and resources necessary to fully grasp the unprecedented ways that aging will change the rules of the game.
What's more, those who do think about the impacts of an aging population typically see a looming crisis -- not an opportunity. They fail to appreciate the potential that older adults present as workers and consumers. The reality, however, is that increasing longevity contributes to global economic growth. Today's older adults are generally healthier and more active than those of generations past, and they are changing the nature of retirement as they continue to learn, work, and contribute. In the workplace, they provide emotional stability, complex problem-solving skills, nuanced thinking, and institutional know-how. Their talents complement those of younger workers, and their guidance and support enhance performance and intergenerational collaboration. In encore careers, volunteering, and civic and social settings, their experience and problem-solving abilities contribute to society's well-being.
[...] Soon, the workforce will include people from as many as five generations ranging in age from teenagers to 80-somethings. Are companies prepared? The short answer is "no." Aging will affect every aspect of business operations -- whether it's talent recruitment, the structure of compensation and benefits, the development of products and services, how innovation is unlocked, how offices and factories are designed, and even how work is structured -- but for some reason, the message just hasn't gotten through. In general, corporate leaders have yet to invest the time and resources necessary to fully grasp the unprecedented ways that aging will change the rules of the game.
What's more, those who do think about the impacts of an aging population typically see a looming crisis -- not an opportunity. They fail to appreciate the potential that older adults present as workers and consumers. The reality, however, is that increasing longevity contributes to global economic growth. Today's older adults are generally healthier and more active than those of generations past, and they are changing the nature of retirement as they continue to learn, work, and contribute. In the workplace, they provide emotional stability, complex problem-solving skills, nuanced thinking, and institutional know-how. Their talents complement those of younger workers, and their guidance and support enhance performance and intergenerational collaboration. In encore careers, volunteering, and civic and social settings, their experience and problem-solving abilities contribute to society's well-being.
I am retiring the instant I meet my relevant financial goals for doing so.
it's time to medicare lower age!
So somewhat we managed to eradicate all old curmudgeons.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
I've invested as much as I possibly can in my 401k for decades. I don't eat out, I have a small home, and don't carry debt. Two stock market crashes have robbed over 2/3rds of my balances in retirement over time. Regardless of picking an exclusively index-fund, the losses have not been proportionally made up with gains. The short of it is - this is by design. The powers that be LOVE their "public good" slush funds. You're not actually supposed to collect from them, just pay in forever and then die for the good of the collective.
Really the biggest problem I see, is how Gen X and Millennials are getting blocked out of their advancement tracks. When people in their 60+ are not retiring, that is creating a workforce where it is difficult to for the younger folks to advance in, because these promotion jobs are already covered by people with more experience.
Plus the next set of problem, is these older people are not planning on retiring, so this means, they are not taking promising young people under their wing, mentoring them the tricks of the trade, to be ready to step up and continue on the work. Now these people are working to their death, without a transition plan in effect.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
While the Racist Right just blames the fact that others are taking their jobs, while they are just unqualified and not skilled enough to do the work. Also it seems these work shy Left areas, seem to have a much higher level of productivity, then the areas predominately right.
I have seen people who are Left leaning, who are very hard workers, and often work harder then their jobs needs, I have seen Right leaning people who are also just as hard workers. I have seen Left leaning people who are lazy and just wants to get paid for minimum work, I have seen Right leaning people who are also just as lazy.
You seem to be confusing political leaning, with other traits which are not correlated.
Labor has been devalued as long as it is allowed.
The 1800's labors for a company were in essence slaves. Living in Company Housing, having to pay their rent back to the company, buying food and everything from the company stores. If a worker get injured or fired, it was nearly a death sentence, because it wasn't a case of getting an other job, but spending the rest of your life homeless, barring extensive effort in finding new work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This also will impact Medicare / Medicade, and health insurance rates in general in the USA. With the number of people over 65 quickly outstripping the people under 65, it is in no way sustainable past 2035. Per the US Census statistics, by 2030 all the "baby boomers" will be over 65, and by 2035 we will be at 165.6 million "working age" vs "retirement age" of 76.7 million...which puts the ratio at 2.15. SSA.gov says the ratio needs to be at least 3 to keep the system going; it dropped below 3 in 2010.
There are only a few fixes for this: 1) forced births combined with forced adoptions; to increase the population AND place the kids into families capable of supporting them or 2) increased immigration; bringing in more immigrants and quickly incorporating them into the legal workforce. 3) restructuring medicare taxes by increasing the income cap, increasing the retirement age, etc.
Your balanced mutual funds didn't recover since the last two market crashes? The market as a whole rebounded in an average 1.5 years after the last few crashes. What kind of dog shit mutual funds do you own?
I don't respond to AC's.
I worked for a company where a maintenance guy who was closing in on 80 and could have retired at 60 refused to leave and refused to train a successor. "If I train a replacement, I'll get replaced." (False. That would be age discrimination.)
He ended up having a stroke and died soon after. He had never documented the hacks and workarounds that kept most of the long-since-discontinued machines running over the years and that knowledge died with him. The capital investment the company had to make after things started breaking immediately surpassed every dollar the guy made during his lifetime.
And he had been making some damn good money.
The machines were only part of the expense. Most of the tooling had to be remade and people had to be trained on the new stuff, plus the new stuff had to be re-qualified for some processes involving mil and medical products.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
There's an entire branch of applied mathematics, known as actuarial statistics, that literally does nothing but figure these things all day long. And since corporations pay them a ton of money to do these projections, they've gotten pretty good at them. As in, amazingly good.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If we curtail immigration and want a growing economy, we need elders to work longer. We should encourage a society that welcomes them into the workplace and values their experience. Elders should also respect the ambition and energy of youth and willingly step aside and assume mentor roles to allow younger people to fill senior roles. (Politicians are you listening?)
Medical advances and knowledge (primarily the emphasis on diet and exercise) are allowing many people to be productive well past traditional retirement age. Many of these older people have the time and resources to build businesses and are job creators.
Look at the story of Ely Callaway. After a successful career and retiring as an executive from a major textile company, he decided to start a second career by building one of the first major successful wineries in Temecula California. While most people would be proud of two successful careers, Callaway loved golf and founded the Callaway Golf company, one of the biggest names in golf. Two tremendous careers built after "retirement".
Ageism is just plain ignorant.
Greed is the root of all evil.
My job doesn't pay as much as I would like. Waaaaaaaaaaa!
Dude, "some might call it slavery" is ridiculous. You are looking at it *all wrong*.
Slaves cannot refuse sex. You can. Slaves cannot quit and choose a different employer. You can. Slaves cannot refuse to be beaten. You can. Slaves cannot choose where they live. You can. Slaves cannot vote. You can. Your analogy is juvenile.
You like having things, like clothing, food, electricity? Well, somebody has got to produce all of that for you. You think THEY want to work for free? THAT would be slavery. No, you MUST give something back for all the effort they have put forth on your account. YOUR job is how YOU pay them back. The "tokens" are just a means of facilitating the exchange.
Yes, we have a problem wherein too much wealth and power are concentrated among too few people. But your analysis of the situation is idiot-level wrong.
Working at 80 something? I doubt I'll make it to 70.
People certainly are "retiring" in terms of collecting Social Security old age benefits.
There were about 2.8 workers for every Social Security Old Age old age, survivors, and disability insurance (OASDI) beneficiary in 2017. This is down from 3.7 in 1970, and 5.1 in 1960. Te ratio had been stable, remaining between 3.2 and 3.4 from 1974 through 2008, but now going down quickly.
The Social Security trustees forecast that the ratio of workers to beneficiaries reaches 2.2 by 2035 when the baby-boom generation will have largely retired.
What's the point besides trading our time and efforts for a token created by those who would "employ" us
Did you know that 42 million Americans are self-employed?
If a worker get injured or fired, it was nearly a death sentence, because it wasn't a case of getting an other job, but spending the rest of your life homeless, barring extensive effort in finding new work.
Your family would often take care of you. This happened to several members of my family in the 1800's. Instead of paying 20-30% in income tax to the government to take care of the invalid, they paid 20-30% of their income to take care of their invalid relatives.
Are you tracking it in ten-minute intervals and counting every little fluctuation as gain that you "lost" 10 minutes later when it went back to the price of 20 minutes before?
The Dow is up 200% over the last 10 years, 300% over the last 20, and over 1000% over the last 30 years. Anyone who invested in index funds funds "for decades" at least tripled their money (two decades), if not a ten-fold gain (3 decades).
If you were gambling picking individual companies, of course you could poorly. You claimed an index fund though, anyone can see what the indexes have done in 5 seconds on Google.
Ergo you're full of shit.
Furthermore, you claimed it was in 401K. Given a typical 50% employer match, which ALSO grew by 300%-1000%, the total return on 401k invested in index funds has been well into four digits.
We should get over the social stigma, already, and start processing the old and infirm as food for the next generation. This would solve the looming food crisis, and move older workers out of the system to create space for younger workers in the same fell swoop. /s
Only people who own things can retire in the US. You can't earn enough working for people to retire. You need to be collecting rent, either figuratively or literally. We're building our wealth by doing that literally... collecting rent from real estate.
I don't respond to AC's.
or the stock market crashes and takes out your investments. Or your company outsources your job in your 50s and nobody'll hire you. Or any one of a dozen things out of your control happen.
But it's a good thing we didn't gut the social safety net and that nobody is doing anything that could impact your plans to retire.
I'm sure knowing all that is a real load off the old minderooni.
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couple of family member illnesses hit in 2006. Then the 2008 crash wiped me out when I started getting back on my feet. By the time the Affordable Care Act's protections kicked in my career and finances were pretty well shot. Right around the time I recovered from that kid got to be college age. Of course nothing saved (even though I made 2x median income and lived like crap driving a 20 year old car). Suddenly had $20k+/year in school bills. I could borrow, but what's the point? They're gauranteed loans. I can never default. They'll just garnish my wages and toss me in jail if I can't/don't pay.
The American working class got shafted since Clinton. The double whammy of Clinton Democrats and the GOP both siding with mega corporations against me left me screwed. H1-Bs flooded the market and my wages plummeted. I think the Berniecrats will eventually fix it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be dead by then.
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And because of idiots like you, the US will get an UBI far, far too late.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The US has plenty of money to pay for Medicare for everybody who needs it. Please don't spread the lie that it's not "sustainable". It's simply "unsustainable" if the Republicans decide they don't want to pay for it.
I don't respond to AC's.
I could literally retire right now and not run out of things to do for the rest of my life, no matter how old I may get.
If you define yourself only by your work, I have nothing but pity for you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
it's time to medicare lower age!
Most countries already do this and provide public health coverage from birth. However, this is not going to fix anything and health care is the crux of the crisis with an ageing population. While 60+-year-olds can certainly be extremely productive and useful members of society they need considerably more healthcare than 18-year olds. As the population ages there are fewer low-cost young people and more high-cost elderly people and so the cost per-person is going to steadily rise.
This is going to hurt every country regardless of whether or not they have a public health system. The difference is how the system will deal with it. In Canada and Europe we will end up with more and more taxes going into the health system and the quality of care will probably decline. In the US fewer and fewer people will be able to afford coverage and most people's coverage will likely get more and more restricted.
Hundreds of statisticians just read your statement and blew their brains out when they realized that their work is in vain.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Kids are expensive. I'd be broke if I had kids, for sure.
I don't respond to AC's.
There's an entire branch of applied mathematics, known as actuarial statistics, that literally does nothing but figure these things all day long. And since corporations pay them a ton of money to do these projections, they've gotten pretty good at them. As in, amazingly good.
They're just extrapolating though, like if you look at historic fertility rates in the US you might think in the 1930s that it's around 2.0, in the 1950s 3.5 and in the 1970s 1.8. Countries have had huge "mood swings" and despite being somewhat correlated with GDP, HDI and whatnot there's a lot of variation. The rate of medical advancements increasing lifespan the next 30 years is also far from given. Maybe someone will set off WW3, that'll throw all projections out the window.
The main reason it's almost certainly true though is that you don't need huge changes from the status quo. People live a lot longer, have kids later and have fewer kids right now, unless there's a radical shift to pop out tons of babies again it's happening. Most western social security systems were created when we had few retirees, they didn't live long on retirement and there was a booming population to support them. The essential input factors have already changed, it just hasn't filtered through the system yet.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Then become your own master, dipshit. It's really easy unless you are a total fucking moron.
[older workers] complement those of younger workers, and their guidance and support enhance performance and intergenerational collaboration.
That may happen, but one harsh condition is that younger workers accept the idea that their elders have something valuable to share. Too often in IT we see old known problems solved again from scratch.
How are they going to say "get off my lawn" when there are no lawns in an office building?
Trump kicked out the illegals and there are tons of jobs available. You need to look to the future instead of living in the past gramps.
Tons of jobs, as long as you're looking for jobs picking fruit, mowing lawns, flipping burgers, or emptying waste baskets after hours in office buildings.
The high paying jobs you wanted to come back are still in China, because everyone still wants a $99 air conditioner from Walmart.
And the really good jobs required you to go beyond getting a high school diploma and expecting to get a job at the steel mill or the Ford plant.
But I'm sure Twitler will bring those jobs back Real Soon Now.
20 years ago the baby boomer generation was 34 to 52 years old. None were of retirement age. Only half of them are of "retirement age" now, being 54 to 72 years old. Half of them should still be working now.
Who ever told you that back in 1998 couldn't math.
If you don't want to work, don't work.
or volunteer. Or get involved in politics. Or play video games. Or build model airplanes. Or teach a community college class. Or do any one of a million things folks can do when they're not working all the time. There's plenty of ways to be relevant w/o working full time.
Yes, there are some folks who don't know what to do with themselves if they're not working. But they myth that most folks are that way is, well, a myth. One I suspect the wealthy put in our heads like the old "Idle hands are the devil's plaything" bullshit.
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In the 1960s factory workers would have got $15/hr in today's money. Now factory workers get $2/hr in China etal.
See here. Folks underestimate just how productive modern workers are. If anything we need fewer folks working, not more.
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You mean anticipating by 30 years which ones will be really valuable, and buying then storing them in conditions where the acid cardbord box stays pristine for 30 years...
The option is to go back to existence before such tokens were invented.
It was utterly brutal. Most children didn't make it alive to reproductive age. If they did, females were stuck doing nothing but doing the procreating for as long as their bodies held together, because if you wanted any security should you survive, you needed to have enough children alive at the end of your procreative cycle that survivors would be able to take care of you in addition to their other responsibilities. Because when you lack such tokens, there's no handy way to monetize any skills not directly related to either surviving, or supporting the immediate surviving. "Ideas, inventions and contributions" that did not serve such people were simply ignored as useless.
Invention of money is one of the key breakthrough of human societies that allowed us to invent the "monetizing the future" aspect of work. Which meant that work that didn't have immediate impact on survival became doable without starving to death.
And notably, this is still reality in overwhelming majority of the world. People in the West (culturally) seem to forget that outside Western cultural sphere, it's a norm rather than exception that family is the primary care giving unit. Not the state.
In many countries, this is actually codified into the law. For example, in China male children are required by law to take care of their parents, and if male child refuses to do so, there is significant legal precedent of parents suing the child for support and winning.
Various regions on other continents, like in Africa and South America have different paths to enforcement, but base principle remains the same. It's a major difference between Western culture, which is a massive outlier in disconnecting "having children" from "social security".
Factory workers haven't been that cheap in China on average in a long time. That's one of the reasons why China is experiencing the problems it's experiencing today. Alongside economic success, their labour is no longer as competitive as it used to be.
Whether that's true, in the tech halls they DON'T actually want us. They throw us out for the latest naive fad lickers they can find. IT is based more on fashion than science & logic*, and younger people are stupid enough to fall for and act sufficiently enthusiastic about every trend that comes under a PHB's nose.
Yes, there are exceptions, but I don't wanna hear them; and git off my lawn!
* I rarely see any solid studies that the newer shit is better, only babbling theory that sounds nice on paper. It's always keep up with Jones' first, science later.
Table-ized A.I.
According to the BLS, the average employee is at a company less than five years. So...
Ten years ago, the software industry seemed a bit age-discriminatory, but even that appears to have reduced... for which I thank the participation awards given to fledgling Millenials, as they do seem to lack the confidence to try something that might not work, while expecting a Director or better position inside of two years. (This isn't their fault; I've hired several initially-entitled Millenials, and all but one turned it around within two years... but it does take work.) So as the young worker-pool shrinks and the experienced pool increases, I suspect adaptation will just happen. On a case-by-case basis until it's normal.
Tuition was $12k/year for years 1&2 and $16k/yr for the last two. Then there's books, food, rent, the car (got by w/o one for the 1st 2 years but after that she's got Clinicals for Nursing and unless she's got some sort of mutant teleportation power I missed all these years it's physically impossible to get from one to the other in time. They're across town. By bike it'd be an hour, by bus 2 hours). All told it's around $35-$40k/yr (depending on the year).
I could save about $6k/yr if she lived at home, but I'm pretty sure she'd go stir crazy and do something stupid like try to get a job while going to school full time. It was made very, very clear by her counselors that the surest fire way for a kid to drop out is for them to try and work during their 300+ level courses. It'd be one thing if she could find a cushy job, but the one she found she had to quit because it conflicted with her school schedule. Oh, that's another thing. You don't pick your schedule like you did when I was a kid. They tell you what your schedule is and if you can't get to class then fuck you, drop out and go work at Walmart. There were 200 other kids in line for her 300 level courses this semester rocking 3.8 or higher GPAs, so they've got plenty of kids to replace her.
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major public universities are well north of $12k after fees. Community colleges OTOH are dirt cheap, but you won't get nearly as good a job with one.
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in 30 years it won't matter. All those old people will be dead.
Happened to me, happened to a stack of men of my age group and social class. No other man involved, if thee was actually another man involved I could at least take him aside and discuss reality with him. More a lot of "I don't feel empowered!!!", "How dare you fat shame me", "my guru says you prevent my enlightenment", and the like. There's a few "white knight male feminists" hanging around these women, but none of them are capable of actually supporting the kids fiscally or emotionally, and they're *certainly* not capable of putting away money for retirement for themselves, much less for mom, or emergency money for the kids. But, hey, they're "sensitive" and "feminist".
72 year old who should have retired years ago.
How many of these self employed are actually employed by someone who makes them mark as self employed in order to evade some regulations?
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
I'll bite.
I'm what most people would refer to as a communist, I'm actually a pragmatist. I believe that everyone should do their part and the ecosystem of the economy should be built to facilitate that. This means that publicly funded medicine is required because people have to be healthy to work. This means publicly funded schooling because without an education, I might as well just replace a person with a machine. I also believe strongly that most jobs are simply not worth paying a proper salary for, so the government has to be in a position to subsidize those workers since in a free market, why would I waste my time and money to employ someone if there's no possibility of making a profit?
Also, I make a lot of money compared to most. I also pay 50% tax plus another 25% sales tax on most things I buy. I still have more disposable income that most.
I just came to work at 2am on a Monday morning. I worked Saturday, I worked Sunday, I work pretty much all the time. I'm certainly not work shy. I raise my children with three core beliefs.
- Treat other people the way you would want to be treated if you were them. (this is an enhanced version of do onto others since not everyone is the same)
- If there's work to be done, don't try to figure out who to put on the job. Do it. If that means standing in a pile of shit with a shovel to make fertilizer, start shoveling but make sure to have a few more shovels around. When people see you... a person they will hopefully see as being "above that station in life" with a shovel working, they'll ask "Why are YOU doing this, surely you can get someone else to" and they'll respond "The job needs to be done and I had a shovel." and some people will realize... if for no other reason than being embarrassed to do otherwise will grab a shovel and help.
- Nothing has ever been accomplished through competition that could not have been done better through cooperation. When we chose to go to the moon, it was a great achievement, but we would have done it faster and better if we combined the minds of the Americans and the Russians instead of having them work relentlessly in private from one another. If you absolutely must compete, try to outwork your competition and achieve more than they do. With competition as your motivation, we sent people to the moon... and we stopped because we won and said "screw it". With cooperation, we put a space station into orbit and it's been there A LONG TIME and keeps getting better. It has been a major contributor to further cooperation that will bring us back to the moon and further on to Mars because we've cooperated to find a common cause. Never use competition as a motivation. It's ok to measure your performance in comparison to someone else. It's also ok to be proud that you are doing well. But it is NEVER acceptable to compare yourself to someone else and consider yourself better than them because you have managed to achieve more. Instead, it makes it your duty to help them increase their capacity.
Economics are substantially more complex than "If this then that". Elderly can't retire because people don't die. That's a far accurate though grossly incorrect observation. We all need to work because we all need money. We all need money to become worth less to allow us to digest the high debt we incur to buy things which used to be much cheaper when people needed less money. Inflation is a necessity to allow people to prepare for retirement.
I bought a house 15 years ago for about $400K at today's exchange rate. My neighbor with precisely the same house (they're town houses) sold theirs for $900K this past week. The house hasn't doubled in size. The neighborhood didn't get an attraction to increase demand. The house simply increased in monetary value because the money has deflated in value by a considerable amount. In fact, the house is really worth less since we bought the houses brand new and now they're 15 years old with wear and tear on them. People paying $900K would have paid a million except they nee
High taxes on cheap Chinese shit will level the playing field. I wouldn't worry about it unless you're Chinese or a Demonrat in their pockets.
Just who do you think is filling those wastebaskets? Robots?
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Nah, the statisticians in question are actuaries. They're too busy driving fancy cars and smoking $1000 bills to read Slashdot. If one did, he'd just laugh and high five his high end hooker, knowing his job is secure.
Yes. I see them all the time holding a sign saying "Please Help." on the median. The cops run them off a lot though because free speech isn't really a thing anymore.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Of course they're just extrapolations. What else could they be? We're talking about the future. We don't have any "facts" about the future. The weather report for tomorrow says "sunny and pleasant", but there could be an earthquake that swallows up my whole town.
Actuaries take the history of a host of variables and try to make the best guess they can. They are right a lot more often than not. For someone to take a prediction and say, "Well, they don't know for sure" doesn't add anything to the discussion and can actually prevent people from making informed decisions based upon probabilities.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, the Dow is up a lot over time. But as a worker you don't invest the full amount of your retirement savings 20, 30 or 40 years ago. You put a little in each year. You put less in at the start of your career because, well, you probably earned less. Meanwhile inflation and fees eat away at that little. Matching funds compensate for some of it.
The real problem is the cyclic nature of our economy. We have a boom/bust about every 8-12 years. e.g. there's been a major crash every 8-12 years since I was born. My Dad's retirement happened to land during one of those crashes, and the way most retirement programs are structured if you retire during one of those busts you get screwed.
The inventor of the 401k is on record saying his program is being abused. That it was never meant to replace pensions. That it was a tool for high income earners to shore up their savings. This is because even he understood that the stock market is a gamble. You're not gambling on companies. You're gambing on when the next crash is gonna be.
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Slaves cannot quit and choose a different employer. You can.
Actually, there are plenty of people who cannot withstand a disruption in employment. This is a problem that UBI seeks to fix.
Slaves cannot choose where they live. You can.
Actually, some people do not have enough money to move. This is a problem that UBI seeks to fix.
You like having things, like clothing, food, electricity? Well, somebody has got to produce all of that for you.
Actually, automation has gotten to the point where the efforts of a dozen people can feed thousands of people. It won't be long until it's down to just one person. Clothing is almost entirely made by machines. Electricity? Well damn dude, that shit is provided by the Sun.
You think THEY want to work for free?
You do know that some people do things just for the betterment of the world right? I write code and give it away so that other people don't have to.
No, you MUST give something back for all the effort they have put forth on your account.
Who said people didn't want to give back? If you provide people with that which they need to survive then they can make better decisions about their future.
Yes, we have a problem wherein too much wealth and power are concentrated among too few people.
And what is your solution to this problem? Should we just hope the wealthy have a change of heart? We tried labor unions and look what happened to those. You are standing in the way of progress. Be careful because it may run you over and drag you with it.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
couple of family member illnesses hit in 2006. Then the 2008 crash wiped me out when I started getting back on my feet.[...] The double whammy of Clinton Democrats and the GOP both siding with mega corporations against me left me screwed. H1-Bs flooded the market and my wages plummeted. I think the Berniecrats will eventually fix it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be dead by then.
Don't blame the H1B. The horrible money-extracting system American people call "heathcare" is at the source of your situation. It is leading more workers to bankruptcy than any single-payer system that is the norm in other OECD countries.
Insurance is a ripoff, but it's not suppressing people's wages. H1B's are, by increasing the size of the labor pool so corporations can pay their work force less money.
The answer ranges from "zero" to "all of them". There you go.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Back in 1986, there was a hit song, "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades", by Timbuk3
In 1990, there was "I'm Free" by the Soupdragons.
Decidedly hopeful songs about the future.
In 2016, the song "Stressed Out" by 21 Pilots was a radio hit.
In 2013, the song "Royals" by Lorde was a radio hit.
Much darker outlooks about the present and the future.
Economists are looking for easy answers. I always chuckle when Krugman goes to his IS-LM graphs and equations, and I think, "You really believe those describe the entire system?" The reality is simple yet difficult and chaotic. Unless you're creating things that people value, like Germany for example, you're not going to have an improving standard of living. But economists can't control that - politicians do. And there's a chaotic element about whether your population will be able to create things that improve the standard of living. Economists can only print money and inject it into the financial sector and government, and hope it has a beneficial effect on the economy. But it doesn't. The economy grows around those sources of money, which aren't geared towards addressing people's needs and wants. They wonder why productivity hasn't improved.
I saw a really interesting debate between David Frum and Steve Bannon ("The Munk Debates" series) about whether populism is the future. Frum was arguing for the old, happy talk globalist (37 genders, open borders and the US as the world policeman) system which held sway till about 2008. Bannon said the future belonged to populism, and the only question is whether it will socialist populism (Bernie Sanders), or capitalist populism (Trump).
Capitalism with controls was good because it was self-sustaining and self-organizing. The value you provided was in line with the remuneration you obtained, with minimal interference by political gatekeepers, who can be easily corrupted. But as the production of value becomes more and more consolidated, as the production of value is off-shored, and money corrupts/warps our political system, gatekeepers have grown in power (via crony capitalism and socialism for the wealthy) and they are not like AI's - they are highly influence-able and corruptible. As in any system where a gatekeeper hands out largesse.
I think going forward, there's a strong push towards socialist populism. Unless we can come up with a system that is again self-sustaining and self-organizing that allows people to create value and which fairly pays people for their labor. The view is dimming for the latter.
>> I see no reason to trust ERISA Laws; if the company running your 401k wants to spend the money they made on your money on hookers and blow they gosh darn can
ERISA regulates *pensions*. It has nothing to do with 401k accounts. *You* choose your investments in your 401k. Generally, you should choose an index fund with low expenses, definitely less than 1%. Vanguard has good ones.
-- ...
we looked at the most recent 401(k) benchmarking data,
About 40% of companies contribute 50 cents for every dollar employees contribute up to 6% of their pay. Another 38% match employee contributions dollar for dollar.
--
Investopedia.com
*You* choose when to sell stocks amd bond in your 401k. You do NOT need to sell all your investments the day you retire, and it would be stupid to do so.
You have to withdraw a little bit (of cash, not stocks) after you turn 71 1/2, but basically you decide when to sell.
As you stated, the economy and the market are cyclical, on a cycle of about ten years. If your dad decided to sell everything at the bottom of the market, I feel for him. That really sucks. He made a really bad decision, probably based on fear.
Well you asked for the advice, so I'll give you some.
The scenario you mentioned hits on two big things you should learn in your first few hours learning about investing.
First, balance your investments. The percent you have in bonds should be *very roughly* equal to your age, so he should have had over 70% in bonds, which don't lose value. In fact they can increase with the stock market goes down.
Second, don't panic and sell everything at once when there is a dip. If the market is headed down from a high and you're worried, sell 10% or even 15% Typical recovery time is about 18 months, so stay cool. After a year, if you feel you must, you can sell another 10% to protect some gains in case it stays down for a long time.
You like having things, like clothing, food, electricity? Well, somebody has got to produce all of that for you. You think THEY want to work for free? .
humans not not produce those. Machines/automation can do it. Just like oxygen for human consumption is made by something (likely so) less intelligent living things called plants/trees.
The crux of the issue is lot of human activities is doing totally irrelevant/unneeded things. Like counting number of sand grains or building 100m meter statues for some human
I am waiting for retirement to finally be able to do all my hobbies and project. Project : a few game idea I have (both as board game and as computer games). Hobbies : board games, rpg (pen and paper) , computer games, card games , cycling a lot, returning to my passion of QM calculations and following the newest advancement there, and I pass on minor stuff like from time to time I do my own furniture for fun and shit and giggle (I build a house for my cats, 3 floor, with little ramp to go , and an openning for me to retrieve cats for veterinary visit :-;), reading a lot of books. I haven't time nowadays due to needing to work to earn enough money to eat, rent, live. But if I am allowed to retire in a financially stable way.... Here we go my pretties. I doubt I will be bored any seconds. I think I would probably complain "I have not enough time".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
But, see, if you cherry-pick the cases of good behavior among people on your side, and equally cherry-pick the cases of bad behavior on the other side, you can turn it into "proof" of your side's moral superiority!
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Welcome to "why you should have actually voted for things like Obamacare", or even better, a national healthcare system where insurances play no significant part.
I have sat and worked out my pension. If I live to 68, I will be given a pittance so small that it's not worth anything *now* let alone later. There is literally no way to live on what I'll be given.
And I don't own property because it's so incredibly expensive that it's all-but impossible to do so on your own, even though I earn way more than the average worker.
I chose early on in my professional career to therefore ignore anything and everything to do with retirement, saving or anything else. It's just not worth worrying about and, at best, would "take the edge off".
Instead I paid my taxes religiously, worked decent jobs, never had a day unemployed IN MY LIFE. So I may call that back later if I ever need it, via social benefits, like some people do who have done none of those things in their entire life.
Literally, it's just not worth the time thinking about it. I'm going to get nothing for all that. And retirement etc. works only if you have had partner and family for most of your life - then at least you might get a mortgage, own a place, have spare cash enough to save or things to sell later, inheritances coming down to you, children helping you out, etc.
Basically, I'm fucked.
But I will never have to pay for basic healthcare.
you are insane. I am quite far from retirement age and i already do not want to buy anything beyond what I need dearly.
It's not "consumption" it's back to industrial production age of production of people of 80 will actually NEED.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I need to see data showing that they got pretty good. So far, never saw the headlines: "hey we predicted this 20 years ago correctly"
Except for Nostradamus. That guy was a stable genius.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
What's the current median age of fully employed in US?
One of the cons of having old people on payroll is health issues. I work in the organization that is aging very quickly, almost at one year per year rate. In two Agile projects I work on (do not get me started why it's not just one) there are not a single person who is younger than 40 and majority is older than 50.
Health issues are a real problem to Agile development. You can't plan shit if you are only 75% sure people will actually work four days per two-week Agile cycle of their half time on the project. "Whatever you can do, John, whatever you can do" is not a ticket type.
That is very true. Except that young managers do not value that. Heck they do not even value "Technical Debt". All is about short term planning. Half of the code is git-blame-dated by ten years ago, yet "Technical Debt" is never important and is considered a knitting activity at your home while you are waiting for Three's A Company re-run on your CRT television after supper and glass of warm milk. As one of the greatest managers I have ever met said about that type of thing (he did it more than anybody else in his free time) said: "it's therapeutic".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
>I could literally retire right now and not run out of things to do for the rest of my life, no matter how old I may get.
Sounds like you have never been old and retired before.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
What we also see is employers who discriminate against anyone who is over 40 years old, outside of the retail sector. Once you hit 40, unless you are a high level person, if you find yourself out of work, getting interviews for even junior level positions ends up with very few responses. Employers don't want to admit that they discriminate against applicants based on age because they would face lawsuits. Many companies also try to get rid of their older employees because they know that people with family responsibilities are more prone to family emergencies, or needing to go to a doctor, or other issues that come with age. In the USA, due to the way the health care system is broken, older employees may cost the employers more money due to providing health insurance.
There are no additional benefits of having these categories at work. Zero, nada. It absolutely does not matter for work what you are privately, unless you are giving birth every you, caught AIDS by shagging in bar restrooms of gay clubs or a no-good-for-anything affirmative action byproduct.
Age is different. Age is coming to all of you unless you die young and we dying young is a privilege that becomes more and more rare with progress. It comes to everybody including Afro-American lesbians.
And it contrast to all these celebrated minorities age DOES provide benefits if you read the article.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Google Search "The National Institutes of Health total number of employees" 20,262 (not including contractors and contractors are typically younger)
Shocking
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
rule: you can be a member if you are above median age of voters (currently median age, period, is about 42). This age will be fixed at the current value.
Please do not start making jokes about existing parties.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
And yet, it seems those who work the LEAST have the most tokens. When can we admit these tokens no longer represent hard work, but class and capacity for exploitation? When can we admit we have built a system of UBI for the very wealthy? Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor. That is the great achievement of western culture.
Clearly there will be fewer older workers willing to work 60+ hour weeks, just as there are fewer 'natives' willing to match the occasionally-terrible hourly rates of migrants.... so how do we stop older folk being penalised because they won't work for peanuts? Part-time work is probably preferable but it needs to lose the stigma.
That's the problem of work scalability and has nothing to do with "exploitation". In society with monetization of the future, more scalable work is rewarded more than less scalable work. Basically the work that handles "ideas, inventions and contributions" that scale in such a way that single person can keep working in a way that will generate more and more as his career progresses.
It has nothing to do with UBI or "exploitation", that trendy Marxist buzzword that is applied by various Marxist schools of thought for every aspect of human life where competence allows for wealth generation beyond their personal hegemon, the "worker".
Considering that it also appears to be leading to innate severe decline of cultures that adapted it due to demographic realities, it appears to be a "next step" that is an evolutionary dead end at this point of history.
They have consistently been divorced by their wives, including the mothers of their children, who are "seeking fulfillment"
Given the massive pile of misogyny you've attempted to disguise as a post, methinks your wife left you for something a bit less trite.
High taxes on cheap Chinese shit will level the playing field
And result in high taxes on cheap American shit being sold to China. Like soybeans. We used to make a lot of money selling those. We had a natural monopoly since it cost too much for other countries to catch up to us - gotta buy a lot of expensive equipment to match our productivity.
Then Trump decided Mercantilism was a good idea. (Hint: We figured out it was a terrible idea in the 1600s).
Now the US has given away it's soy monopoly. And it will still be gone even if Trump declares victory and cuts tariffs, because we created a window for other countries to catch up to us. So now we will make less money selling soybeans forever.
Trade is hard. If your solution to any trade problem is "so simple", you are wrong and going to make the situation worse.
Is it because these people *aren't* saving enough for retirement or is it because they *can't* save enough to retire? The difference lies in whether one assumes most of these people are finding meaning and satisfaction in their work or whether they are stuck in a cycle they hate and have no means to change or affect. The appropriate solution to deal with this shift very much depends on which of the two you think is happening.
My favorite quote from TFA:
Some companies are pushing back: In a recent video, T-Mobile’s John Legere took on the topic of ageist stereotypes while promoting a T-Mobile service for adults age 55-plus. He chided competitors for what he called their belittling treatment of older adults in marketing campaigns that emphasize large-size phone buttons and imply that boomers are tech idiots. “Degrading at the highest level,” Legere calls it. “The carriers assume boomers are a bunch of old people stuck in the past who can’t figure out how the internet works. Newsflash, carriers: Boomers invented the internet.”
(Also, computers, etc.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Yes, that should be "definitely below . 1%". 0.1, not 1.
Thanks.
I know several people that could easily retire comfortably right now. They are healthy enough to likely live for years but they won't because the have zero interests outside "work". No hobbies or interests. They will sit behind a keyboard till they drop.
:-( ). I have several hobbies that would fill my every waking minute. I will not be bored!!
Myself I cannot wait for the day I figure out the finances to stop working (I may never manage that
How folks exist today without hobbies or interests makes me sad for them. I am even happy to accept that "coding" is their hobby/passion but when I suggest they do it for themselves I get blank stares back. Oh well.
it's retirement. If you find yourself out of work sick for a while (or caring for a loved one) you'll burn through your retirement savings and everything else you have until you or they either get better or die. Then you'll find yourself in your 40s with little or nothing to your name. Meanwhile if you follow the other two links I sent you'll find folks trying to end Medicare and Social Security. They claim only for folks under 55, but it's naive to think they'll stop there. It's too much money, and they want it for themselves.
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In the literal sense of the world ("proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.").
You don't have to do those thing, but you'll be pressured until you do. Your boss will harass you to sleep with him and you'll do it to keep your job. There aren't any different employers because mergers and acquisitions mean there's few companies left. The cop'll beat you if you get uppity and demand change. You can't buy nice homes because of zoning.
The wealthy of North figured out what the South didn't: Slaves are a raw deal. You spend money on a slave. You tie up capital in a slave. Better to have a completely disposable workforce with the illusion of freedom but none of the actual power that comes with it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"the population is getting old. Very old. Globally, the number of people age 60 and over is projected to double to more than 2 billion by 2050 and those 60 and over will outnumber children under the age of 5. In the United States, about 10,000 people turn 65 each day, and one in five Americans will be 65 or older by 2030..." I'd like to know what their definition of "very old" is. I'm 68, do short runs of 5 miles a couple times a week and (usually) a longer run, and I think I'm still cognitively... um, can't remember what I was going to say, but I think it was something good. Anyway, I hope you youngsters keep working to pay for my eventual retirement.
My only wish is that I could find a job I could do from some remote location, where the trails start at my back door. For now, I seem to be tied to a desktop in someone else's office in a somewhat boring state.
The crux of the issue is lot of human activities is doing totally irrelevant/unneeded things. Like counting number of sand grains or building 100m meter statues for some human
Or sitting around trying to look busy for 7 hours reading /. because you can get all your shit done in 1.
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The crux of the issue is lot of human activities is doing totally irrelevant/unneeded things. Like counting number of sand grains or building 100m meter statues for some human
Or sitting around trying to look busy for 7 hours reading /. because you can get all your shit done in 1.
In that case, he should use the 7 hours to gain the knowledge to reach escape velocity (financial independence / retirement/ simple or frugal living). Then all waking hours are available to pursue passion/hobby (if already have one or the passion will find him) with full space/time freedom (not needed to be in that morning meeting)
I also believe strongly that most jobs are simply not worth paying a proper salary for
If you don't think a job is worth paying a proper salary for how do you expect to get anyone to do it? Lots of jobs don't bring in profit. Cleaners for example. I bet they're one of the jobs you don't deem worthy of a proper salary yet you probably expect someone to spend 40+ hours per week doing it for you. A full time job, regardless of what its doing should pay at least the bare minimum required to get by and it definitely should not be subsidised by government. If you want your lobby clean you'll fucking pay for it and you'll pay properly or you can just fuck right off.
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If my mom had a serious health crisis, the only person to take care of her would be me, and I have a full-time job. If I had such a crisis, there wouldn't be anyone, no kids, and I've already outlived my SO. So much for family.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Yes, I remember how hard Obama fought the GOP when they wanted to cut Gov subsidies to companies with offshored factories... Oh wait, I got that backwards
People keep talking about this as a looming disaster, instead of an even that was planned for more than 30 years in advance.
By 2035 baby boomers will largely be dead and not collecting any benefits.
As that's never happened (paying 30% of income in taxes for senior care) that sounds like a Libertarian riding his anti-sixteenth amendment hobby horse. Comment is further detached from reality as families don't typically consist of people having 5-10 kids anymore, and working children of retirees weren't paying five figures a year in education costs for their own children at the same time as they took care of their own parents.
It might be that you have unrealistically high expectations for a standard of living. If you currently live somewhere that the cost of living is very high, getting out of there upon retirement should be one of your first steps. I live somewhere that is already pretty cheap, and plan to be somewhere even less expensive when I retire. Even with living somewhere cheaper I plan to downsize my living space considerably by then. Provided you can prepare your own food and can minimize ongoing expenses it should be quite possible to get by on a minimal income. I support a family of four on my wages, and I've got friends that have combined earnings similar to mine that have larger families.