The death of retirement.

[cornermouse]

Official title - Can you afford to retire?

PBS Frontline story
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/

Well worth reading/viewing.

[WePurrsevere]

1. We caught it on our local PBS station. It was excellent but it not only

was frightening but ticked us both off.

I highly suggest pre-retirement folks see and learn from this... I lmow we wish we'd known about this years ago. :(

[cornermouse]

4. It frightened me too.

At this point looking back, I'm not sure whether anything that we could have tried to protect ourselves would have worked. I do know that even if you try to save, all its going to take is one serious illness with accompanying tests and treatment to wipe out our life savings and retirement as it stands now; especially with health insurance companies starting to retract coverage retroactively as was stated a couple of weeks ago. Keep in mind that 401k started out as an anomaly which was then adapted to profits for the companies. I think this insurance retracting coverage after treatment and payment is just the beginning.

It looks like our entire societal structure is being dismantled.

[Joe Bacon]

2. ...but Bu$h says the Churches will take care of the needy

...Never mind that ¢hur¢he$ are run by the Greedy...

[cornermouse]

5. Churches don't have the money or training.

They can't fill the gap and they aren't capable of replacing the government in taking care of the poor, disabled, and elderly. And yes, currently they are being run by the greedy.

[FloridaPat]

3. I will watch this later. Thanks. Problems in the retirement system

were predicted years ago. But the bankruptcy of America wasn't a factor at that time. Have we been screwed by our own gov't! There won't even be jobs to have when we get to retirement age because of all the foreigners - legal and illegal - coming in and all the jobs being sent overseas.

[cornermouse]

6. I'm really angry at the republicans and also at the democrats

who have gone along with this.

[INdemo]

7. IThe question is folks Will

your retirement fund be there when you retire......I am (WAS) due to retire in 3 years at a reasonable monthly income but Since March of 2004 my monthly draw (projection) has been changed three times.The company managing our fund is actually making more from our fund than we are...I am seriously thinking about trying to get a class action suite started or at least organized...So please dont think your retirement is secure unless you have a private retirement account.
The 401Ks could be dwindled..

[FloridaPat]

13. I met a 90 year old lady who was working because her retirement

plan had been raided by the people overseeing it and she got left with nothing. Then look at the steel workers pension and the airline pensions. Big trouble there. The car manufacturers are looking at dumping their pensions. It is starting to not look very pretty for pretty much anyone but the super rich in the country. And if the dollar tumbles, even they could be out of luck.

[Yupster]

17. Pensions are history

It just doesn't make sense for a company to have a pension. Every company which hasn't gotten rid of theirs yet will someday.

In twenty years the only workers who will have defined benefit plans will be government employees and even they will be under much pressure.

[PowerToThePeople]

8. I plan on commiting suicide

No worries about retirement here.

[StellaBlue]

23. me, too!

God, I love being an atheist.

;)

[Bigmack]

9. Wife and I retired in '98...

and have state pensions plus SS. We don't feel secure, exactly, but we've got a nice chunk plunked in Canadian banks and managed to throw together a pretty diversified bunch of small investments.

But we know that if the system goes, we are in deep shit. It's reasonable to expect that somebody 65 years old might start working again to make ends meet, but how about 75 year olds? 85 year olds? It's not that 85 year olds are stupid, just that most of them can't take the physical beating that comes with a job... even a "greeter for MallWart" type job.

I've never understood Repub thinking. What do they imagine old people will do if their retirement fund goes away? Will they vanish into thin air?

[cornermouse]

10. I think they plan to let them die.

Cold and effective. That's a republican for you. Like a snake.

[pitohui]

21. 50 percent of people 85 and older have alzheimer's

so not to contradict your statement "it's not that people 85 and older are stupid" in a cruel way but realistically i have to look at my family and at my genetics and the brain is not going to be there for half of us at age 85

and some people get it or another form of dementia sooner

what happens to the brain as you age is scary

we already know what happens to the body because it can't be hidden

it is not real to expect old people to work, they are just going to have to fund social security and medicare somehow, because your life's savings for most people are a fraction of what you would need to generate an independent retirement

[sandnsea]

11. Death of the American Dream

Repeat early, repeat often. That's what is really happening here.

[Hidden Stillness]

12. This was a Great Program

This was the best single explanation I have heard on TV (thank God PBS is still largely public, not corporate, recent attempts by Republicans to kill it to the contrary) of this whole nightmare situation. The basis of the threat here--there are many others, such as that most non-union jobs no longer even have pensions, benefits or salaries people can pay bills on--was the switch, starting during the '80s and forced by employers, from guaranteed pensions operated by the corporation and paid to the retiree, to "401Ks," paid jointly by employee and corporation, with ever-dwindling amount paid by the corporation, and "managed," "invested" by the employee. I remember being horrified by the explanation of what 401Ks were, during the '80s when their corporate media was hyping them and censoring all others, and now the predictable-worst has happened, and all the 401K pimps pretend to be "so shocked" by it.

Simply put, no matter how you try to calculate it, within a few years, the money runs out. The most frightening thing in the world for a retired person happens--you do not have any money left in this (what is the expression everybody?) "private account," and do not have enough to live on anymore. They showed one of these horrible, mandatory rah-rah "classes" that employees of one corporation were forced by management to attend, on how to--God help us--invest in the stock market and mange their own stock portfolio, which I'm sure every single one of them would rather die than have to do. (Wish you had a union now?) If they have as little knowledge--and interest--as I do, this is like signing up for the "Medicare" Part D prescription crap, a total mess with no clear coherence to you, and as the program showed, most of the investments of people who have never thought about this before were, surprise, losers. Then what do they do? People on moderate incomes, no matter how good their stock choices, never made as good a return as an ordinary, old-fashioned pension managed by experts. It is a horror. It doesn't work, as even some of the original devils who killed pensions for this shit now admit. They do not give people enough money to live on, and the retirees are burdened with this "picking stocks" shit that I'm sure they would rather do anything to get out of.

This is why, among other reasons but all relating to Republicans deliberately killing the good-middle-class-union-job-economy situation, you now find old people working at menial jobs at a rate that they have not since before the New Deal. Every single one of these "own your own money/future/blah blah" corporate hypes, that they have been forcing on people since the 1980s and telling us "we" wanted it, has been a complete, horrible failure, and every warning about how if we lose unions, pensions, Social Security, government regulations, etc., it will be disaster, has come true.

[Yupster]

18. There's no doubt that pensions are better

for employees than defined contribution plans.

The problem is they don't make sense for the companies, and the people running the companies are worried about the business more than the employees.

[TahitiNut]

19. "the people running the companies are ..."

... sure as hell taking care of their own 'retirement' years. They'd screw the business in a instant if their 'golden years' were the pyrite they've foisted on the workers who've made them wealthy.

[Yupster]

20. That's fine, and

CEO compensation is a huge issue today. Stockholders have no say in what a CEO makes even though they own the company.

All that's fine, but doesn't change the fact that a defined benefit plan doesn't make any sense for a company, so they aren't going to keep them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. I saw it Friday night

I never want to fly United ever again.

[PassingFair]

15. If we fail to fund our young daughter's educations, and...

stop eating, and move into a shoebox....
will we be able to fund our retirement?

[pitohui]

22. the choice between a child's education and retirement

every planner i've heard says you MUST prioritize and fund your retirement plan BEFORE you fund a child's education

if you have no money for the child's education, she can take out student loans, even get grants and scholarships in some cases

but if you have no money for retirement, no one is going to help you or loan you anything, they can't, because of your age they of necessity have no expectation that you have a long career ahead of you that would allow you pay back big loans

it seems an unnatural choice, to put self ahead of child, but i think you have to

be v. honest w. your child when she's old enough so she will know the importance of good scores, grades, etc. to give her the best chance at any grant or scholarship money that can help her keep down the debt

i don't know what to say about eating and living in a shoebox, at some point, prices are so scary high it seems we can do nothing but just have food and shelter for the day doesn't it?

[fortyfeetunder]

16. Too bad this thread didn't get more recommends...

This is a MUST READ article. I fear with the current political climate, many Americans will be in a world of hurt come time to think of retirement.

It's sad and very sobering to read the stories about company slime, failed investments. And I've read of many DUers and folks on the outside, through unemployment and underemployment can't save for retirement, much less take care of their daily needs.