Reply #1: Most people in their 50s had to rely on that pension [View All]

because we were the generation that bore the brunt of double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, double digit unemployment, and then a double digit delcine in real wages after the mid 1970s oil shocks (which was blamed, you got it, on greedy labor). For much of our lives, we've faced inflation followed by declining wages, and there is no way to save under those conditions.

We have been told that if we'd saved $2500/year since we were 20, we'd be in fine shape to retire now. What those chirpy numbers crunchers fail to realize is that most of us made barely that when we were 20 and needed nearly all of it to live on.

When they tell me how I could have saved $2500 out of a $2675 annual salary, I'll listen. That is what I made at the age of 20, and it was considered a good wage for someone just starting out.

There is a real time bomb set to explode when those of us in our late 50s start to retire. Our medical benefits are already gone, and most of our pensions have never been adjusted for inflation. The combination of a small pension with social security, for those of us lucky enough to have worked somewhere to accrue a pension, will probably not be enough to live on, and we will lose everything we ever worked for, just sell it off for enough money to buy food. Now they're even yowling about paying us the social security we've supported all our lives.

I'm telling you this as a cautionary tale, all of you under 35 who think you have the world by the tail. If there is a way these bastards can skin you, they will. They have made our lives miserable and have robbed our futures. We have no hope left. They'll do it to you, too.