Retired April Fools Day 1998 Never Looked Back - Americans Have Been Lied To By

[TheMastersNemesis]

corporate America.

My generation may be one of the last to even see retirement. The real crime is that the American business community and corporate America has committed the greatest fraud on workers in the last 100 years. The new model for retirement is a dead end for future generations. The truth is that everyone's retirement money has been given to CEO's and the Rich and was set up by Ronald Reagan and the GOP.

Until the working class claws back this theft and demands what the WWII generation won, there will be no future. The idea that you will have 8 or 9 careers as ballyhooed by corporate America is just plain bullshit and the worst lie ever told. The problem is that corporate America does not want workers past 45 because they are now too expensive and risky and do not fit into the global market place.

For me retirement has been everything that I expected. It allowed me and my wife the kind of freedom we are thankful for because of the kind of retirement plan every worker deserves. It has allowed us to care for a family member who lived to 104. It has allowed us to sustain better health because lack of work stress.

American workers should be demanding decent jobs and decent working conditions rather than austerity. The present narrative should be unacceptable. Why workers are allowing themselves to be manipulated I do not know. Jobs with justice and dignity are the only way.

Every American worker deserves the same deal Congress has. It is only fair.

[femmocrat]

1. You were fortunate.

I had planned to retire several years ago, but due to health care, I am still working.

Were you ever bored? I am afraid of being bored and having nothing meaningful to fill my days. All I know is work and I really don't have many other interests!

[TheMastersNemesis]

11. Have Never Been Bored - Have Plenty of interests

Have plenty of interests and actually do not have enough time to do everything I want. Golfing, gardening, politics, hanging out, traveling, etc. Never "lived to work but always worked to live".

The only regret, that I could not have retired at 40 or even younger.

[mercymechap]

2. I am retired also, and

I wouldn't trade it for the world. At first I felt like I was just wasting time, but soon got busy clearing the land that we were building the last home we planned to live in and generally our retirement home, I forgot about work. I have so much to do now, I don't know how I got anything done when I was working, with kids and going to school at night! Whew! I love life, now. I get up when I'm ready to, don't have to rush through breakfast, then I can choose my projects as I please. Sometimes not too many get done because I get sidetracked by other fun things.

I hope my kids have the same experience when they retire, but you're right, they may have to work a lot longer and not get as much in retirement pay as I am fortunate to get.

[iemitsu]

3. Hear, hear.

This message should be shouted from the rooftops (except that it would disturb exhausted and sleeping workers) until everyone has heard about the reality that could be ours if we had fair labor practices and taxed the rich.
I am not lucky enough to have retired yet and sometimes doubt I will ever get to, but I agree that American workers need to demand that we return to policies that sponsor better lives for all of us.

[jwirr]

4. Right at the moment it would seem they will see it as soon after 50 as their bosses can get by with

firing them. All to many 50 year olds are having trouble finding work due to their age.

[abelenkpe]

5. +1000

[WillyT]

6. HUGE K & R !!!

[JDPriestly]

7. Thanks. May we live long and prosper.

That should be the slogan for all working Americans.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

8. Good sentiments as to what American workers should be demanding. If we want to see more Democratic

candidates to be elected, should we wonder to what extent do American workers believe that they have been played? To what extent do American workers believe that they've been played by previousl candidates who said that they were in favor of American workers?

[libdude]

9. Retired

You are very fortunate to have been able to retire. I was able to retire a year and a half ago just short of my 61st birthday. This was made possible by several factors, opportunity, personal effort, family support. I retired from
government service after almost three decades of service. Prior to beginning my civil service career, I worked for ten years in the private sector which was covered by Social Security. During my civil service career I also worked part time in the private sector covered by Social Security.
I spend my time bicycling, reading for self improvement, following politics ( discovered I have been a socialist and did not know it ).
Traveling when possible, cant forget concerts, still waiting for the Dead to wind it up.
All this being said, not to spotlight myself, but to focus on one thing OPPORTUNITY, and opportunity for all. The opportunity for all children to be free from want, for good public education both academic and vocational, to use those skills in good jobs which provide for successful lives and having done so, to see a time to enjoy their efforts in productive retirement. My thought is when this really is a government of...by...and for the people, perhaps the people will decide that corporatocracy will not rule the nation, that plutarchs and oligarchs will be relegated to history.

[ReRe]

10. K&R

Clearly, the retirement age needs to be rolled back. Way back, like to at least age 50, because it looks to me like life expectancy is falling. And we need jobs that pay a GD living wage, so we won't have to work ourselves to death working 2-3 jobs. Or doing the work of 2-3 people and only getting paid for one. Universal health care would really help us too. Just think if that albatross wasn't hanging around our necks all of our working years? Yeah, we need to turn this ship around. And the sooner, the better.

[PETRUS]

12. ...

(hat tip to MrScorpio)

[TheMastersNemesis]

13. Everything About The Present Business Model On Jobs Is About Two Strategies.

1. Keep the work for in a "gypsy" mode so workers cannot organize and demand better working conditions and wages.
2. Maintain enough job insecurity to create competition so you can dump workers when they are used up.

[PETRUS]

17. Ah, yes... a "flexible labor market"

Fun for the whole family!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. The right wing media have gone into overdrive in a rather successful attempt to make

ordinary Americans JEALOUS of people who still have decent retirement plans.

That's one of the ways of attacking teachers and other civil servants. "They can still retire and enjoy a decent income! How dare they when you can't!" The low-information types are eating it up.

If I were a Democratic strategist, I'd put ads in low-brow magazines, on billboards, on TV reality shows, and everywhere else saying something like, "Why can't you retire with a decent company pension like your grandfather did? Who stole your pension? Not the unions, not the government, but the greedheads in corporate boardroom."

Of course, that would offend the accursed and amoral "Third Way" (Yuppie Republican Lite) Democrats, but so what?

[TheMastersNemesis]

15. The Way The GOP Wants The US Would Leave No Reason To Serve In The Military - If There Is Nothing

for workers at the end of their career and there is no decent living during their career then what are you protecting. What kind of freedom do you have if you cannot eat and take care of yourself.?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Alas, people are responsive to empty appeals to patriotism

Those economically depressed areas that provide the majority of enlistees are rife with the meme, "I want to serve my country."

At the beginning of World War II, the Russians were disinclined to fight the Nazis, because Stalin had been so brutal. In some places, people welcomed the German troops as liberators--until they started committing atrocities.

But in the areas that weren't directly invaded, appeals to patriotism worked. "Fight for Mother Russia!" and all that.

I can predict that if the United States were so monumentally stupid and immoral to invade Iran, all those anti-government, American pop culture-loving, DVD-smuggling youth would turn on a dime and fight back.