July 1, 2010

Retirement age could rise every five years - Telegraph

Retirement age could rise every five years - Telegraph: "Retirement age could rise every five years"

See link above:

Unfortunately, this really isn't news...in fact this is expected. It's eventually expected for all nations. It's a shame that a nation's citizens can't foresee or don't get upset enough over such an obvious heist. For instance, let's say a person put their money in a savings account at a bank for 45 years, then at the end of those 45 years they decide to go to the bank and withdraw some money. But the bank says "unfortunately we don't have your money today - you're going to have to wait another 5 years before you can receive it." The person is confused and asks "well...why do I have to wait for my money? You guaranteed that my money was safe and it would be available to me when I was ready. Where is it?"

The bank replies, "we spent your money to expand our banking and financial services to new states - so we could serve more people. But - don't worry, we've replaced your cash with IOU's."

If this was a true story, I bet a lot of people would be livid to find out that their money was missing....oh wait - this IS a true story. Only the bank is the government and the money represents your social security that you've been required to pay through involuntary taxes.

In the same manner that the once "guaranteed" traditional pension plans were eventually considered too expensive for companies to carry and continuously pay out to its retired employees - government pensions or "entitlement programs" such as social security, medicare, welfare, etcetera, are becoming too expensive to carry and continously pay to its retired citizens.

How did this happen? How can we prepare to avoid working until we're 70? 80? Or will we ever be allowed to retire? Will we be able to afford it?

The best answer is to not count on social security or even a pension plan as a sole retirement plan...but only as a supplement or alternative to your real retirement plan. A real retirement plan consists of real estate, buildings, commodities, etcetera that can produce or provide multiple income streams for you.

1 comment:

  1. Barrington:

    My father who is 81 commented on the outstanding rate of return he has enjoyed on his social security investment, that is taxes. he also realized that future generation will not enjoy the same results.

    Amazing how not even a speck of light is shown on this issue.

    Stephen Madonna, CFA

    ReplyDelete