Another retirement crisis?

[rogerashton]

"A recent survey by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators found the nation's largest pension systems were collectively facing a $267 billion shortfall. A separate study released last month by Wilshire Associates, a consulting firm, found that the asset shortfall for state pension plans was worse than for corporate plans."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/weekinreview/01dao.html?

I am fortunate in that I have been in TIAA-CREF since 1967 so I should be OK barring a major inflation or a general economic collapse.

There is no good economic reason why young people should not have the option to choose fully funded, vested guaranteed benefit retirement plans to retire early, if they choose to put that much aside. There are risks in guaranteed benefit plans, but we know how to manage risk today, with very sophisiticate methods -- and most Americans can afford early retirement if they choose it.

But even if we had that, two facts would remain. First, we will need a safety net to protect people from being poor when they are two old to work. That's the task of social security. Second, some of us old geezers are going to be stuck with the best choice we could make from the options we were given 40 years ago. Until someone invents a time machine, anyway. And when the promises we were made are not honored, we are wronged.

[cornermouse]

1. It all comes back to the medical insurance problem.

Even if you have pensions or whatever, without insurance and possibly even with it, everything that you have is going to be sucked up by old age care; hospitals, nursing homes, doctors.

[BornaDem]

3. This is certainly nothing new...

Until Medicare started picking up the bills in the '60's, unless your company gave you health insurance with your retirement, you were left to pay for your own health care in old age. Now the gov't has maxxed out in paying in one generation and we will be back to the same old thing.

People have to realize that there isn't enough $ in our economy to pay for all the care that people will use if they don't have to pay for it. The only two choices are rationing of services or pay for it yourself. If the gov't gets to ration the care, there will be very little for old people since their productive years are over.

[cornermouse]

4. One serious illness is all it takes to wipe out a lifetime of

saving and investing for most of us.

[BornaDem]

5. Agreed, but if the gov't is not going to pay for it...

because the taxpayers can't afford to pay for it or the gov't rations health care to old people, there is nothing to do except hope you die suddenly so you have something left to leave your children after a lifetime of work.

[cornermouse]

6. I'd rather afford that than Iraq.

Hopefully, when Bush's term is over and he's gone....

[BornaDem]

7. So would I, but by funding Medicare for the WW II...

generation, we found out that it's not affordable. Nothing is going to change the fact that taxpayers cannot pay for unlimited health care for old people. In the last 3 or 4 yrs. of a person's life leading up to their death, the gov't. is spending millions of dollars on individuals (nursing home care, operations that costs $ 500,000, etc.) We could stay in Iraq 100 yrs. and it would be an infintesimal amount compared to funding unlimited health care for the Boomers.

[cornermouse]

8. I disagree totally.

We have not found out any such thing. What we have found out is that the republican appetite for greed and avarice is bottomless.

[enid602]

2. retirement

When I took an early retirement at 47, I opted for a 'lump sum' pension, and rolled that and my 401K over into an IRA. I don't want to have to depend on those fuckers for anything. Don't trust them or the pension system.