Exactly The Reason I Am Writing This Blog

Posted by RP

February 10, 2008

They’re known as one of the most rebellious generations in U.S. history, not to mention the largest. This year, the oldest of the 79 million baby boomers born from 1946 through 1964 turn 62, which means they become eligible for Social Security. The boomers - projected to live longer than any previous generation of Americans - will have the longest retirements, too.

Can they afford to retire? How far will their Social Security checks go? The reality is this: Many of those who retire early will accept reduced benefits - and in doing so will risk falling short of their financial needs.

So what will this generation of retirees do? … Read the rest of this hand-wringing propaganda, if you care to.

Just got a look at this propaganda piece courtesy of a Google News Alert (you do use these right? Just go here and Google will scour the world day by day to find you specific data you want to keep up on and put it in your inbox). I really enjoyed the "rebellious" tag. I’m technically not a baby boomer, I was born in September, 1945, so I can just watch as the "boomers’ roll onto the American scene. The reason I love the "rebellious" tag is, I really guess that I am. I’d probably still be working … plodding away at my better than most government job … but I couldn’t stand how those I was working with and for, much younger and often much better educated, couldn’t "get" a concept as simple as 2 + 2 = 4.

Folks, the government, especially the US government, is not on the face of the earth to take care of you in retirement. Most especially by mans of that blessing/curse known as Social Security. Social Security was put in place by perhaps the most liberal of democrats out country ever knew, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in order to act as a safety net to prevent out and out starvation of people who had lost everything in the Great Depression. It was never designed to be the cornerstone of Everyman’s retirement. Quite frankly, if you have nothing better to do than to calculate your break even date to make the choice between drawing Social security at age 62 or 65 or 67 or whatever, then you have way too much time on your hands and way too little concept of what you should be doing with that time.

I started my Social Security on my 62nd birthday and I am damn glad of it. I read just the other day that some pundit calculated that I will lose money by opting for that date if live to be 78 or older. Know what? i sure hope so … in fact I plan to go into the lost money column and stay there for 30 years or so. Probably won’t make it but if I live to be 108 I won’t care too much about how much pittance I get from Social Security.

Folks, get with the program. If you are reading this column you have at least a certain interest in self sufficiency. That interest is of infinitely more value than any handout Obama or McCain or who0ever is going to be grudgingly squeezing out, a drip at a time, eight years from now. Eight years for now you can have way more money than the scraps left in the Social Security account by Congress … and you won’t have to kiss some politicians ass to get it either.

Want to make money? Just do it. …oh and Social Security? I drew mine at the earliest opportunity so that when it goes broke I will have gotten out as least as much as I put in it … that’s about all you can expect from a government benefit in today’s world of fiscal irresponsibility. You have a lifetime of education and experience. You are not the government’s "chump". Stop acting like it!

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