Anyone watching Frontline? "Can You Afford to Retire?"

[gulliver]

I'm watching the end of Republicanism. The corporations have screwed the baby boomers out of their retirements. The boomers just don't know it yet. The 401(k) revolution, the bankruptcy laws, all geared to screw people out of their retirements without them knowing it.

You can watch it on line here.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/view/

[Warpy]

1. Right, and they were agitating to get Social Security into

Wall Street's greedy paws so that those 401Ks would look like they were actually worth something to older boomers who'd been screwed out of pensions in favor of the "ownership society" at their jobs.

It's all a big "fuck off and die" to people who've worked damned hard all their lives, people who've accepted lower wages, lousy working conditions, vanishing health care and other indignities to preserve the solvency of their pensions, people who have had to go into debt to make ends meet in a hostile economy that has lasted nearly the whole of their working lives.

I call older boomers the "Robbed Generation," because that's exactly what 37 years of conservative rule has done to us.

[gulliver]

3. Yeah, they didn't even go into the Social Security robbery.

The Republicans turned Gore's lock box into a big joke. No one noticed when Bush borrowed all the surplus from Social Security and handed it out as tax cuts to the rich.

This Frontline program actually gets into the fuzzy match. Corporations have been using clever marketing of 401(k) programs and exploiting bankruptcy laws to get out of pensions. The boomers are wrong if they think someone is watching out for them besides Social Security. They're on their own.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. 401k's

It isn't a recent report, but it is very well done. This crisis is a true cause for alarm.

My "professionally managed" 401k is only worth slightly more than it would have been if I invested it in a gourmet coffee vending machine... I am many years from retirement, but I don't see this generating for me a dime over $100,000 and I don't think that will go very far in 2025.

[gulliver]

4. You're right. It's from May.

I am self-employed with a SEP and other investments, and I watch them like a hawk now. I didn't for too long.

It bugs me to see people robbed when their only crime is that they aren't doing the math and guarding their interests. This show makes it very clear just how much a lot of boomers are living in denial. Their government has not protected them.

[Generic Brad]

5. The reality is that most Sr citizens will need a part time job

I fully expect to have to work past 65 even though I will have Social Security, a pension, and a 401k. Put all three together and it still will not be enough for me to live on. As long as my health holds out I know, twenty years before I get there, that I will have to a least work part time to make ends meet. And I'm better off than most people.