Yes, you are correct and we have also paid for every welfare baby, every drug addict treatment, every housing program, medicade for anyone who stumbles across the border, every police action for the last 50 years, international aid and on and on and on and on.... ad infinitum. We also paid for people to retire at least two decades too early. Sooner than we could ever afford because a bunch of damn fool politicians who don’t care allowed it in spite of actuaries telling them it was impossible. Our parents and grandparents enjoy(ed) a retirement most of us will never know. The problem has been know for decades as someone pointed out. Politicians won’t face the problem and so the only conclusion is FAILURE of the whole financial system. We will see the largest abused geriatric population the world has ever known. Life expectancy even now is falling in the U.S. Medical care is just too expensive and more technology has not become equivalent to better care.
#24 More than 30 percent of all investors in the United States that are currently in their sixties have more than 80 percent of their 401k plans invested in equities. So what is going to happen to them if the stock market crashes?
And where else would you invest? Bonds?
The stock market WILL crash, it already has and the growth is negative. Only the money changers are prospering.
Many of the things you say are true. However, if you think people retiring at 65 are retiring “two decades too early,” I beg to differ. Have you ever worked with an 80 yr old boss? I have. No computer skills, no knowledge of how things work and even less interest...in short, the kiss of death for any company unfortunate enough to have him or her.
That doesn’t mean that all 80 yr olds are like that, but the great majority would be, and purely from a business point of view, you need to make space for younger people and new ideas. If they’re hale and hearty and full of ideas at the age of 67 or 70, let them retire and start a second career. And free up the jobs for the next group down.