A new report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute suggests that many Americans will have a pretty brief retirement since they will have to work beyond the average life expectancy of a citizen before they can afford to retire. The report entitled “The Impact of Deferring Retirement Age on Retirement Income Adequacy,” says that a large percentage of Americans will have to work into their 70s and 80s to afford basis costs of living.
For those Americans earning between $11,700 and $31,200, they will need to work till age 76 to have a 50% chance of covering basic expenses in retirement. Those citizens earning between $31,200 and $72,500 will need to work to age 72. You have highest income quartile (making more than $72,500), you can still retire at 65.
The AARP Public Policy Institute report, “Family Income Sources for Older People, 2009″ notes the growing importance on earnings to support older Americans:
The share of aggregate family earnings income increased steadily, from 26.4 percent of total family income in 1990 to 35.0 percent of total family income in 2009 (an increase of
9.2 percentage points or 34.8 percent). This change indicates that the earnings are becoming a more important income source for older persons’ families.
In the meantime, despite reports that the $61 trillion U.S. debt amounts to to $534,000 per household, the Obama Administration will spend $750 million on just our latest war in Libya.
Here is the EGRI report: EBRI_IB_06-2011_No358_Defr-Ret
Here is the AARP report: fs224-economic
Source: MarketWatch
Jonathan Turley
Wasn’t SS to have a surplus of 1.5 or 1.9 trillion in 2015 if it had not been jacked with…how about paying the money back….
“I don’t believe that would happen in a dynamic market. If capitalists are so hell bent on controlling markets, what do they gain by entering into a cartel?”
Roco,
Up until now I know we disagree on almost everything, but seriously, I never thought of you as being naive. What they get by a Cartel is the ability to control prices and the ability to keep smaller companies out the the market by undercutting their prices and sewing up what ever resources a new company needs to compete.
Why is OPEC a Cartel and proudly calls themself one? To control the market and thereby control pricing, increasing profit.
If I was the COB, or major stockholder of any corporation and I thought that my CEO wasn’t doing enough to drive up market share, I’d fire his ass. The natural tendency of any large business is to maximize market share. The only reason any other auto companies but GM and Ford are around is because of the US anti-trust laws, otherwise they would have totally controlled the market. GM and Ford at one time had the power to control it all but the government wouldn’t let them. I keep explaining to you that is why there is no such thing as a free market.
If perchance you are a small businessman, you might not get this, because small businesses don’t tend to operate like that, though in a small town, with let’s say limited plumbing work, a richer plumbing company might try to drive out its competition to increase profits and ensure the same doesn’t happen to him. I’m a damn social worker and I understand this. In most business situations you grow market share, or die. That’s why governments are needed to regulate markets.
It is the government regulation that actually permits startups and business innovation. Without it history has shown that big businesses try to stifle or buy up competition in their field. You Free Market people look at their ideal as an item of faith, similar to the faith many have in the God of their choice. One can reject a God, but cannot rationally prove one doesn’t exist. You can do that, however, with the Free Market myth. It never existed and it never will exist and you can’t show me anywhere in history it has, except in possibly very primitive society, that lacked any appreciable technology.
Why do you think diamonds are so expensive? It’s because by mutual agreement the amount of diamonds that come on the market are limited. If that wasn’t so, there are so many diamonds in storage, they’d be worth a dime a dozen.
Mike Spindell:
“Therein lies the normal tendency to manipulate, without the mediation of government regulation, ensuring any such unregulated market eventually becomes monopoly. The big fish swallow smaller fish and either swallow each other or coalesce to form a cartel. Once a monopoly or cartel is formed prices are then set by it, rather than market forces. ”
This does not happen in a vacuum. I don’t believe that would happen in a dynamic market. If capitalists are so hell bent on controlling markets, what do they gain by entering into a cartel? This would only give some up-start the opportunity to enter the market. In a free market cartels are counter intuitive to success, they don’t work. Rockefeller got into one and had to get out because he lost a bunch of money.
Monopolies cannot exist in a free market, they can only exist with the help of government. There are too many competing products and services that would come to bear in a free market.
I submit to you that gas is the fuel of choice because we do not have a free market.
way where = any where
Who in their right mind would TRUST THE STOCK MARKET? I feel sure it is mostly rigged and manipulated by Sores, Koch Brothers and the type. I know we cannot TRUST BANKS we have Corporations that BOUGHT our so called GOVERNMENT and to risk putting money way where is a just that, A RISK. SO while a lot of you have advice it is great but I do not know you either so why in the world would I trust you? I cannot TRUST my Bank, Stock Market, Savings and Loan (we bailed out years ago), Our Government, Corporate GREED Mongers with big bonuses that made it off the sweat of the American Workers. So when someone can tell me who any of us can trust I would like that person to give me advice as long as they can prove their information is trustworthy and not just yet another GREEDY SCUM SCAM.
“You would be wrong, my income has tanked. I am barely making it but I know for a fact that more government is not going to cure this mess.”
Roco,
I’m truly sorry if you are going through hard times. I don’t wish misfortune on anyone. However, the reason the economy has tanked has been because of market deregulation and signing trade agreements detrimental to our economy. Both these came about because of the people who have shouted loudest for Government getting out of businesses way. Your thinking is led by a mythology about the world that is shear fantasy. It is deluding you.
“I don’t even think you can really say there has ever been a truly free market in this country so I am a little curious why you and others think it has failed.”
Roco,
Again, my point is there has never been a free market anywhere. It is a myth and a gross misunderstanding of the terms’ inventor, Adam Smith. It is an impossiblity by definition since it refers to business dealings and trade. The natural object of any capitalist, I say this descriptively not disparagingly, is to dominate and control any market they are involved in. Therein lies the normal tendency to manipulate, without the mediation of government regulation, ensuring any such unregulated market eventually becomes monopoly. The big fish swallow smaller fish and either swallow eachother or coalesce to form a cartel. Once a monopoly or cartel is formed prices are then set by it, rather than market forces.
As to over regulation your are totally wrong and ending Smoot-Harley is the poster boy for the idiocy of deregulation and the financial crisis that followed. It was a bi-partisan effort born of either belief in cant, stupidity, ignorance or greed. Probably all of the above.
Roco, you speculated that universal coverage “might even kill all R and D”. This is a vital point that is too rarely discussed. Changes to the pace of medical innovation will be the largest price to society, far beyond the dollar cost. Of course – just like our national debt – it’s our children who are really going to pay the cost.
A few years back I wrote several predictions around the impact of state health care:
Health care is rationed in all countries with universal coverage.
You make the return on investment 20 years and money will go to other more lucrative investments. It might even kill all R and D.
There are only 5 major insurance companies, there is no real competition because of government restrictions on entry.
Your argument from greed is old and tired.
Yeah you have. The economics of having the largest risk pool possible and simplified data channels for health insurance does not impact the cost effectiveness or safety of medical devices or drugs. The cost is primarily a function of 1) the efficacy of the manufacturing process and 2) the size of the potential market. Not who pays for it. That’s a secondary consideration. Unless your argument is for maximum profits then of course you want parties willing to pay whatever inflated price a manufacturer is willing to charge to recoup their R&D costs as rapidly as possible in their never ending chase to make shareholders happy by paying a dividend. The only parties that match that description are for profit insurance companies that will gladly pay for a treatment no matter how expensive provided that the patient in question is buying the most expensive health insurance that the company sells. The government wouldn’t operate that way in respect to pricing, but rather they would do as Canada does currently with both device and pharmaceutical manufacturers – bargain with them. The only negative effect this has on companies is in the area of pure greed as it may force an ROI on R&D to take 20 years instead of five. R&D costs and their reduction and or mitigation by making efficient manufacturing processes is the manufacturing management’s problem. If they are too greedy to spread out those costs or too incompetent to lower the costs to themselves by process improvement? That is also their problem. None of this changes that health insurance and pharmaceutical/device manufacturing have a tangential relationship and that nexus meets at who pays. Of course they don’t want single payer universal health care. It would force them to actually work for their salaries by focusing more on eliminating process and manufacturing inefficiencies to build their bottom line instead of merely colluding with for profit private insurance carriers to milk “Cadillac” health insurance policies to prop up their shareholder expectations. Hard money versus easy money. Good luck getting sympathy for industries posting record profits on that issue.
Mike Spindell:
“These unfortunately are the fruits of your political philosophy and while I guess you’re doing just fine, it blinds you to what’s happening to the rest of us. I say this not as an unfortunate, ”
You would be wrong, my income has tanked. I am barely making it but I know for a fact that more government is not going to cure this mess. Free market capitalism is the solution not more government intervention. Even Trump for all his money is an idiot when it comes to markets. So is Romney and Palin as well. They want government doing favors for business, I don’t want that. I want the cream to rise to the top and the curds to sink to the bottom and let the market determine who is cream and who is curds.
The only way that can happen is in a free market. If you want to pay for your social welfare programs, you better get on my bus. Yours wont make it out of town.
” They profited $14.4 billion dollars last year and paid $0 dollars in taxes. They in fact got a $253 million dollar tax subsidy. So save that “corporate taxes” spiel for “your” people – the venal.”
first of all they’re not my people, GE and Obama, a progressive, are your people. Secondly I would not have given them any subsidies.
How do you think insurance costs are brought down? through less expensive drugs and procedures is how. Which occurs because of competition and a favorable regulatory system.
The entire economy is connected and what happens in the orange juice market effects the price of corn or vice versa. It may not be much of an effect but if the price of orange juice rises there is less money to spend on other things. Maybe it isn’t a measurable effect but the idea of connectivity of markets is there. And is applicable to the cost of insurance premiums because of reduced drugs and procedures.
So I have not changed the topic at all.
Mike Spindell:
“The current definition of insanity now in vogue: Is to keep doing what you’ve been doing, even though it hasn’t worked. ”
Quite frankly, I don’t see it. The code of federal regulation is larger than it was 10 years ago. We regulate everything and we have a federal reserve which engages in interest rate manipulation. There is no free market and there hasn’t been one for many years. I don’t even think you can really say there has ever been a truly free market in this country so I am a little curious why you and others think it has failed.
We have a good deal of government intervention in the market at all levels but not so much freedom.
Personally I don’t think poor people (those making under $100,000 per year) should pay any taxes at all.
“No, I would give them competition and reduced medical costs and less regulation so they could have more drugs come to market and more innovation in medical technology through reducing taxes and regulation on drug companies and medical equipment manufacturers.”
Except that isn’t the issue. Medicare/Medicaid goes to the problem of health care insurance, not the FDA regulation of drug and medical device manufacturers. Try to change the subject all you like. It’s funny when you twist and distort to attempt to protect anyone with a profit motive. As to corporate taxes? GE is one of the largest manufactures of medical equipment in the world. They profited $14.4 billion dollars last year and paid $0 dollars in taxes. They in fact got a $253 million dollar tax subsidy. So save that “corporate taxes” spiel for “your” people – the venal. As to the FDA? I have made several comments about substantive structural changes the need to be made to the FDA to make them a more effective and efficient body (such as splitting the agency into a dedicated Food Safety Agency and Drug Safety Agency), but to suggest that pharmaceutical companies don’t need to be safety tested before they launch products to market is simple ignorance of the history of the public need and damage done by unregulated drug companies that led to the formation of the FDA in the first place. People can simply Google the terms “History of USFDA” and find out how full of crap you are in that assertion. Snake oil? That’s exactly part of the problem that resulted in the creation of the FDA in the first place.