Remember the good old days? Dad would go off to work and mom would hit the sherry?
Wait. Check that.
Dad would work and mom would stay home, take care of the kids, go shopping, do the laundry, clean house and make dinner. Dad would also grunt all over mom when he was in the mood.
I think they called this The Golden Age.
The point was: One spouse could have a single job that would provide for a middle class lifestyle, with enough earnings to allow the other spouse to not have to work. The job provided for health insurance benefits and a retirement.
Now, I do know what you youngins are saying. “That’s about as likely as rainbows flying out of a unicorn’s arse hole.” I am not shitting you. This sort of reality used to exist in our country. Of course, you guys are the first generation in the history of the United States to be worse off than your parents, so I certainly can understand a skosh of cynical skepticism.
Now you can have a married household where both parents work full time to earn a portion of the lifestyle that used to be achievable by a single wage earner. Worse, besides working twice as hard for less, they have to pay strangers to take care of their children, a little bonus stressor on the traditional family unit for which they get to pay top dollar.
Isn’t progress great? Or, in guru parlance, “Ouchies. Too much fucking change!”
Social Security. A program I’ve paid into, under threat of force, since the day I turned 16. My whole life. I still remember looking at my first paycheck, as a youngin much like yourself, and saying, “Where in the name of Zeus’ butthole did my money go? I got your FICA right here, motherfica.”
Good memories.
Another good memory is when the Social Security Act first came into being way back in 1935. I’m the dude standing behind and just to the (stage) left of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in that famous picture of him at a desk signing that historic legislation. Hint: I’m the only one wearing a white suit with a bright red bow tie. (It’s hard to see because the picture is black and white, but trust me on this.)
Just a reminder for those who have conniptions and scream about Social Security being an “entitlement program.” It was created as a response to the Great Depression when over 50% of America’s elderly were thrust into abject poverty. Something had to be done. And done it was.
Is the program perfect? Obviously not. The wonderful combination of less people paying in and more people taking out has pushed it to the limit.
Even in the beginning, though, Social Security was never intended to be the sole means of support of a retired person’s existence. It was famously described as one-third of a “three legged-stool.” The three legs on that stool represent Social Security, private pensions, and savings and investment.
Those of you with functioning critical thinking skills may already be sensing what I’m about to say.
Private pensions? Please. Those went the way of the dodo long ago. They were replaced by the brilliant concept of linking your retirement to the stock market. That way you can watch your future existence go up and down faster than Paris Hilton’s head on bootleg video.
Do employers even offer pensions any more? It used to be recruitment tool, I guess. It was something that was expected. You did work for a company and they did their little bit to take care of you and help provide for your future. (A long since deceased win-win.) That spirit of cooperation has been replaced with a sense of, “Everyone for themselves!” If this was the Titanic I guess we all know who would beat everyone else down for their seats on the first lifeboats. “Women and children first” is so old and busted. It’s ironic, too, since these are often the same people who deliberately aim for the icebergs on purpose. But I digress.
You can work your entire life and earn no private pension. It’s hard to earn what employers don’t provide. And, news flash, not all employers even offer 401k plans. Personal anecdote: I worked at one company 11 years before my participation in the company 401k was made available to me. For fun I used to run spreadsheets projecting final earnings if I had fully participated from the beginning. Those missing 11 years made the difference between $250,000 and $5,000,000. Wee difference, eh?
We watch. You saw legs. We wait. We’ll be ready.
Private pensions? Dodo. And there isn’t going to be a Private Pensions Park, either. There’s not enough DNA left in amber. Even Spielberg couldn’t pull that one off.
“Savings and Investment.” In America? People save? Are we even having this discussion? File this under Does Not Exist.
That’s two of three legs sawed clean off the stool. All that remains is Social Security holding our collective asses above those alligators. “Look at those snappers, Ralph. Look at those snappers, would ya.”
Help me, Social Security. You’re My Only Hope!
Thus we arrive at the one-legged stool. We’ve foolishly chucked “pensions” and “savings and investment” into the Hudson River with concrete goulashes. It’s like we’re at the blackjack table and just told the dealer, “I wish to double down on Social Security.”
Now people wish to privatize it. What could possibly go wrong? Or “fix” it, which usually consists of some variation of me not getting back out some portion of what I paid in.
The 40-hour work week sucks, especially when you hate what you do. And we’re working twice as hard just to maintain a reduced existence of the one enjoyed by our parents. And we don’t even get the health insurance, either. (Or, in my case, vacation time and paid days off.) And now they want to take away the final leg on the three-legged stool.
It’s almost enough to make a guru cry and wonder, “What’s the point?” I’m on a wheel, running towards as mythical piece of dangling cheese that I’ll never reach, and my future is being pecked at by vultures. I’m supposed to be worried about Abraham Lincoln and vampires? Please. Budget fixers wielding axes hacking at my only hope are much scarier.
The future’s so blight I gotta share Hades.
In the good old days most people died before retirement age. Maybe the idea of retirement is a myth that we cling to, because quite frankly it is a Ponzi scheme, the way it’s devised. You can’t take more out than it put into it, whether through public or private funds.
Did you know that Otto von Bismarck invented the concept of retirement? Before then, everyone just assumed you’d die in your harness. http://www.ssa.gov/history/age65.html
Myth? Certainly for the hand-to-mouth employee with very low resources. Personally when I retire I plan to take it all the way.
There was an inventor of retirement? Fascinating. I guess I’m the lucky one, then.
If the government would keep its fingers from double-dipping out of the profits of ALL businesses, especially small business, instead of taxing them so heavily and hampering those businesses with some ridiculous (granted not all are) regulations that hinder a free growth market, then companies would be more apt to use real retirements as a benefit to get the higher quality employees to stay.
Let me elaborate. As it currently stands, companies like my husband’s cannot afford to expand solely because of the government. And trust me expansion is possible by 10-20 new jobs if he were willing to deal with all the government BS. All those small numbers would add up. This reluctance of many similar small businesses to expand locally or regionally limits the whole country-wide job employment market. Less jobs mean more workers than positions available and companies can then cut benefits because there are more workers fighting for the limited jobs. This reduction in benefits recovers some of the profits those companies feel they have lost due to government taxing, etc. One way to subtly coerce companies into a position where they have to offer those retirement and benefit packages in order to keep employees and grow in order to make more money is to create the situation in the economy where there are more jobs than people to fill those jobs. More jobs and less workers mean higher pay and the return of benefits being used as incentives. It is really simple economics of supply and demand with people.
With the current social media society of today it would be easier to plan strikes and boycotts against companies who would potentially violate human rights or head down the path of evil monopolies within this country. Also consider the unions and other methods within the people’s power to control the businesses. Let the people mainly govern business ethics using that social media, instead of the current government over-regulation. Granted some small regulation will always be necessary in a civilized society, but the current amount of government regulation is truly hindering business growth instead of helping the pursuit of happiness of society as a whole.
Trust me, I would be much happier having a few employees and paying them a future retirement and good health benefits as opposed to seeing my husband working his ass into an earlier grave because he is doing the work of multiple people just to have the government take away 27% of it in taxes. Give us back just 17% of that and let me (I am unpaid HR and CFO for the company so we don’t get taxed even more) hire and train some workers. That would be a win-win. The government would get more money as we grow (10% of anything more is an increase for both), the people we hire would have wages and benefits (and pay their 10% tithe to the government). At that point multiple people will now have money flowing into the economy again instead of being sucked into a growing welfare society, my husband can semi-retire in his old age (he will never really retire unless his health forces it). With semi-retirement available to make him still useful in society but also able to relax and enjoy old age, he would never NEED to draw on social security. He would be spending his own money and not even think about government money. Oh, and our employees that stay loyal for 20-30 years will have their own private retirement income and would never NEED social security either. So social security would be used to support only the aged people in ill health and disabled people who are unable to work, thereby becoming a manageable system again and not overburdened.
I know this sounds like a bunch of rhetoric because it is so brief (to share the full plan would need spreadsheets and a novella of details), but it is a proven plan that works internally with businesses all over the world and OUR country is simply one humongous business of which we are ALL a part. Workers that don’t work cause those that do work to work harder. If you don’t invest back into the company, the company will stagnate and profits die. We are not investing in our country’s job market and profit growth right now, so the country cannot afford to provide the luxury of retirement any more.
Seriously, full retirement has always been a luxury earned through a lifetime of hard work and wise saving or planning and should never have grown into a cancerous welfare idea of “the government owes me this” because some charismatic politicians used higher taxes (but called it something more palatable) to trick a struggling country into supporting it’s own human rights in a harsh dark age in our history. The grand mistake occurred when the government realized it had trapped itself in it’s own trick and could not undo that tax once the country started into a recovery period. Once the country had that piece of candy and saw the candy jar, it felt it deserved that and more candy. Sorry folks, the candy jar is being depleted and you don’t need the candy anyway. Plan and do for your own future and quit trusting the government to do for you. And my fellow countrymen, who control the government, stop taxing me so someone else can have candy. I would be happy to help support my elders (like my ancestors did) and disabled family members (and I have two permanently disabled adult children) equally with the rest of my family. I can do that, if the government would give me back my friggin’ money that we earned instead of taking it and calling it a social security (TAX!!!!).
One of my disabled adult children is currently on SSI disability. What the government takes from my husband and I specifically in social security taxes is more than she would be paid in a lifetime at her current rate times three. So, as a responsible money earner who loves my family (and knows how to get support from non-government charitable groups like her church if needed) I could afford to support her and a couple elderly family members instead of expecting a government to do it. FWIW: the other disabled adult child works minimum wage so he does not need SSI or government aid, but does live with us during this tough economy supported by a tight-knit family like it should be.
I look forward to your response to help me mold my viewpoint into a better plan. Fire away, my friend. I love our polite debating.
Hi Beth! I’m glad you’re still here keeping me honest.
I do appreciate the viewpoint from the other side as it were. Things I can’t possibly imagine or understand because I’ve never filled those shoes.
I do agree that government loves to wring profits from every dollar repeatedly as it moves through the system. It seems overly complicated and wonky to me, but I’m just an idiot.
I’m at work but will try to analyze your comment later. Thanks!
#1 – Beth S.: What a load of unsupported drivel – and you took up that much space to say it? A ‘free market’ is an impossibility. There never was one and it’s not, at face value, what the founders/pushers of capitalism actually had in mind. Also, if you’re going to talk about tax policy with respect to small businesses, that’s one thing. But they are a very different beast than multi-nationals (which by the way pay a lot less in taxes now than they used to!). What have these corporations done with all that extra money? Pay their execs even more ridiculous salaries and compensation packages and cut wages and benefits for the rest of us hardworking bastards. I sense that’s part of the issue this post touches on. In case you missed it. It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it – as George Carlin so aptly put it. We’ve tried your experiment. IT DIDN’T WORK.
#2 – re: this blog post: I love it! Great articulation of the frustration of working people. Only I do take issue with the following, if I may quote you: “One spouse could have a single job that would provide for a middle class lifestyle, with enough earnings to allow the other spouse to not have to work.” Maybe some women have been known to hit the sherry because their work, be it at home or elsewhere, has been underpaid and under-appreciated – or not acknowledged as work to begin with. Not much has changed, apparently.
1. A company i know just laid off frontline workers while maintaining an office in the big city at $50k a month rent and $200k salaried salespeople who haven’t sold an item in years. The company is going down in profit taking and the gravy train will soon come to an end, even for the higher ups.
2. I think you understood exactly where I was coming from with the sherry comment.
it was mostly that way back then but it sure isn’t these days. Thankfully. That’s one way things have improved although we aren’t there yet. One thing about those who wield power. They hate to give it up.
I call my retirement account a retread account. The only way I’ll make it to a ripe old age not eating just ripe old cheese is by making my own decisions on the money I do have and reusing as much as possible. Not letting anybody else make those decisions for me. It’s one of the reasons I quit my job and took the pension money with me when I went. It’s done better than if I’d stayed and my sanity is still mostly intact. Mostly.
A retread account. Interesting. I visited some ocean front property recently (I shit you not) that had been sold as a luxury development. Only it turned out that the property is subject to frequent flooding thus no water or sewer would be allowed. Oops. Seems like someone just absconded with the kitty.
On one lot, however, there was a collection of ancient trailers, vehicles and piles of junks. I knew at a glace that this was someone’s home. My wife wasn’t convinced until on the way back we saw that the front door had been shut. I waved hello at a cute kitty cat sitting on a rusted-out pickup. I would have taken the cat home with me but I wasn’t in the mood to get shot. As the tall grasses rustled you could just make out the faint sounds of some banjos that were dueling.
It was hard to believe people actually lived like that.
What I found most awesome was the way the junk was strewn about but stayed within property lines, so the outline of the lot was clearly distinct. Obviously these people wanted to play by the rules.
I quipped that I would love to have one of the lots. When my wife looked at me like I was crazy I said I’d merely live underground in a “bio-dome.” It would provide for 100% of our energy and sustenance needs and we’d live off the renewable resources of our own poop and pee. It would be an achievement for the ages! Somehow she was less than enthused with the idea.
I guess what I’m saying is, see what happens when you use the word “retread?” And that’s how I’ll take care of my retirement. Who needs a stool?