Read that. Ok, so far?
If every boomer had $1million saved in his 401k (equal to about $640k in after tax savings... keep this number in mind for further down the thread on drug costs for seniors), the present value equivalent of those defined benefit plans of yesteryear that somewhere along the line came to be seen as a birth right, do you know what the market capitalization of the U.S stock market would have to be (assuming that their investments were primarily domestic)?
You would have to add about $7 - $10 Trillion to the total market cap of the U.S. equity market... that would mean that many more cars built and sold, that many more houses built and sold, that much more Oil, Nat Gas, Coal et al, produced and consumed, that many more bombs built and dropped... everybody would be rich, good looking, in shape...
Does this Utopia exist anywhere on this Earth?
These expectations were never intended to be met. Never. Ever. These were political sales jobs over the past 5 decades that somehow people believed.
For example, from the article:
The traditional pension plan is disappearing. In 1980, some 39 percent of private-sector workers had a pension that guaranteed a steady payout during retirement. Today that number stands closer to 15 percent, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C.What percentage of the population was covered by "guaranteed" pensions in each generation previous to 1980? The article makes it sound like pensions have been the norm since mankind crawled out of the muck.
It goes on to say that many boomers plan to "work till they drop". And? Isn't that the way its ALWAYS been? Let me get this straight... who in their right mind thinks that they should be able to go to school until 30, work until 62, and then live another nearly 30 years on the dole? That's what has been pitched to the American people by the University system (populated by you-know-who) for the past couple of generations... but it has no basis in reality.
Here's my personal favorite:
A 55-year-old man with typical drug expenses needs to have about $187,000 just to cover future medical costs. That's if he wants to be 90 percent certain to have enough money to supplement Medicare coverage in retirement, the EBRI said. Because of greater longevity, a 65-year-old woman would need even more to cover her health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health expenses: an estimated $213,000.OMG!! Who believes that this stuff???!!! Every single one of us is going to die... maybe we will go a few weeks sooner and leave a little more for the family when we go. Forget working to save the extra $400k for you and your spouse's drug needs in old age... eat healthy, have lots of sex, wine, song, and exercise... you will come out much farther ahead than funding the drug companies... leave the $400k to your family and not the drug companies.
There is an EXCELLENT article this month in National Geographic Magazine - "Population 7 Billion". I can't link it... I highly recommend thinking people get a copy of the magazine and read it.
Forget the doom-n-gloom of the population story... the untold story is that older people on top of a population bubble can get financed with outrageous benefits and older folks on top of a population bust cannot. FDR was NOT a genius... and Bush was NOT a moron... the population data is everything. If, after reading this excellent data point you still think a any U.S. president's policy was the critical input... well, you are a true believer. No point debating with true believers.
What we have had for "political leaders" for generations have been LAWYERS (no offense to you legal beagles... some of my best friends are lawyers... snicker... its just that we need folks with an understanding of economics and science - not word smiths) willing to overlook the data and run a know-nothing campaign and fill the electorate with know-nothing policy Horse Sh*t.
Its just math.
Folks... our lives are a self-rescue story of sorts from now on... if you want something a certain way you will need to see to it yourself. The Government is NOT here and they are NOT here to help you.
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Oil remains firm in the futures market, with a slight Contango going out on the time curve. The Crude call option market has gotten quite rich... the market seems to think Oil prices head much higher. Nat Gas has stopped embarrassing itself for the moment.
I think Oil could peak out well over $100 next year... if Oil gets north of a certain number, say $130 next summer, I think the political repercussions could get very, very interesting.... it is quite possible that the electorate will continue to deny what is actually happening and turn over the incumbents not a few times before they come around to what we are truly facing.
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I am so focused on all of my homestead projects this Spring... I can't wait to get at it. I have been drawing up plans for my garden like I was an architect... I am moving the garden to east side of my barn, right behind my house, and making the old garden a hog yard. I ordered 100, 8 foot cedar boards and already have 150 cinder blocks for making my permanent raised beds.
Stand back! This is serious... a rabid gardener is on the loose....
23 comments:
Nat Geo is ridiculously hard to navigate, by design methinks.
I read it on hard copy.
You're assuming, like everyone else is assuming, that the average person lives to be age 92, which is nonsense. People die, even these days, much earlier (out of 100 people, by the time the survivors hit 62, 30some of them are already dead). Smoking, drinking and no exercise does wonders for the funeral industry. The ones that live are much more likely to become disabled than is realized. The average person will have a hell of a time being productive at work at age 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 and sooner. "Working till you drop" is a quaint expression but has nothing to do with reality.
Bur:
I have no idea why you post sh** like that.
Everyone will work till they drop... some will just drop earlier than others.
When I was getting food tonight I noticed the cover of NG and starting reading the article. I am going to have to go grab it now because it got me thinking. 9 billion by 2045 with a severly limited oil world, me thinks we are in for some rough times in the near future. Maybe not this yr, but soon.
One thing I just don't understand is how the msm does not talk about peak oil. We are making GDP projections at the CBO for 2020 and no peak oil is ever thought about? WTF? Not even a little subscipt!! weird.
Looking forward to my garden as well Greg. I am sure it will take more than a few months for the EPA and FDA to get busy with their new power and regulate our gardens. This maybe the last year we have to enjoy them!
In three days the great baby boomer retirement party begins. Things are going to get interesting.
Sh** = reality
No Bur, your Sh** does not equal reality.
Reality does not give a good fart about any of our sensibilities or sensitivities. Not even a little bit.
Population phenomenon dictates what is possible in elder financing... everything else is just noise.
Unfortunately, I cannot link the data charts that make this debate moot... I had not considered population trends in this manner before... once you look at it, it is unmistakable.
With less oil, we won't make it to 9 billion. There will be big TROUBLE in the third world. Famine and wars incited by desperation. In case no one has noticed, a much worse weather phenomenon than global warming seems to be taking hold -- global cooling. Thus the change in the Leftist lexicon from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change." In any case, these @$$holes are becoming irrelevant. Whether this is a short term blip or a longer term trend is to be seen, but over the last century the wheat belt has moved hundreds of miles north. A southward trend will only add to the misery.
Bur, I hope you have some children to help you in your old age. It is not too late. Family has almost always been the caretaker of the elderly. It will be true again soon. And, take care of your health. Couch potatoes on insulin and blood pressure meds will be the first to go.
I just spent two weeks in Europe, and if you think the MSM is bad here, it is just AWFUL over there. There are talking heads screaming climate change and disaster 24/7. Unfortunately, it is just BS propaganda, too. Socialists. Phew!!! There are plenty of people that are aware of the real problems. Who has such a tight grip on the media that they can't get a venue? It is truly frightening.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Thank God the Chinese have their one child per couple policy in place. Can you imagine how bad the situation would be if there were 2 billion Chinese people in the world instead of 1.3 billion?
Bureaucrat: Keep it up, no matter how much they try to slap you down. I wish I had the energy and persistence to debate people like Greg and Dextred all the time but I don't. I check into this website every once in a while to make sure you're still around.
FYI:
the Chinese are a much bigger player in the energy/oil markets nowadays as the population of China is bigger than that of the US and EU combined. They raised reserve requirements again today in an aggressive attempt to keep inflation under control. The next move will be government quotas on oil usage, which could be coming in other countries as well. You'd be surprised how much oil is wasted by non essential consumption. I think it would be great if the US mandated that anyone who lives less than five miles from their place of work has to walk. We could solve the obesity problem and the oil problem at the same time.
Crybaby please!
The last time I "debated" Bur a few blog posts back, he completely ignored the points I made by just bring up new ones as if to talk by my ones.
In my business with bad kids, there's something called planned ignoring and from here on, that's what I'm doing with him.
Crybaby,
Please stick government mandates where the sun don't shine. You may think totalitarian government is great while they happen to be enforcing your whims on others. Eventually they will notice something that you need, or like or enjoy that is outside the ever changing, ever shrinking list of acceptable behavior. I'd hate to see it come to that.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Crybaby:
In order to debate people like us it is necessary to be well informed, measured, mature, and rational... otherwise its just a dual with an unarmed opponent... the results of which are boringly repetitive.
People like Fat Kitton, Phil23, and others seem to lack these qualities.
Pioneer;
This is the year we go full time homestead. I am writing up "to do" lists, drawing my garden out on paper (as they say: "plan your garden and then garden your plan), my plans for a cistern, milking barn, goat barn, chicken run...
gonna be busier than a "one -egged man in an ass kicking contest"!
Can't wait for March.
for now its a free country - and I can state that I enjoy the fact that there is at least one person (ie bureaucrat) who has the guts to debate those people who think they are omniscient -
Just make sure you label any charts as "projected" and "actual," Jeffers. :)
I love how they say on TV the "projected resale value" of the new Ford Fusion is HIGHER than the Camry. And WHO is making that projection? :)
Lots of things are "projected." We were supposed to have this huge crime wave occur in the early 1990s that never happened. Expert "projectors" are sometimes wrong.
As far as "actual" goes, the Social Security system, and its brother, the Social Security Disability fund, is still paying out money to people unable to work (anymore). And there are a lot of them.
What "projected" data you got? :)
And can we talk more about oil and natural gas? EIA has LOTS of data on that .. so far all of it good. Which goes along with the news item that all gas stations are still filled and operating. Hahaha!
I love to cry(baby).
Crybaby,
History has taught us over and over that quota systems always produce shortage. The only thing that works is for invisible hand to work it's magic. Like it has done thousands and millions and billions of times. The easy part was taken care of in 2007-08 run up and recession; the hard part is wringing the savings from the remaining oil.
About population:
Europeans turn 8 calories of oil into 1 calorie of food. Americans do even worse - 12 calories of oil into one of food. And 4 years ago, Bush started the big push to ethanol which finally made obvious the connection of the price of food to the price of oil.
Add that starvation and famine are usually a lack of money to buy food, not a lack of food, and its obvious that a high oil price = famine, especially in the mega-cities like Mexico City, Delhi, Mumbai, Manila,Karachi, even Lagos, seems just a high-oil-price away. Even oil producing nations aren't safe bacuse the income isn't shared, it just buys better security for the wealthy few.
I don't think population will get much above 7bn; it could even be falling now, we wouldn't really know it for years. Life expectancy is falling in Russia (alcoholism), many parts of Africa (aids), parts of China (pollution and industrial accidents,)even in the USA (obesity), and recession will make it much worse in Western countries who have driven the world statistics higher.
But it's 130$ oil that would truly decimate world population!
Donal is that the total usage of oil in the production of oil or the complete production and distribution of oil? The 8 could be only the local price of food, while exports are measured in other ways. Similar to moving oil refining off shore to lower carbon production in the US but making no real difference. Somebody buys all of this food we produce and I think Europe has their hands on some. They have about a 30% tariff on Ag imports from US for some reason. The United States is now the world’s largest agricultural exporter. The value of agricultural exports equals nearly one-fourth of farm cash receipts, about twice the level of the overall U.S. economy, and 1 out of 3 acres are planted for export. Point being we are the Saudi Arabia of Food so it makes little difference to farmers because food prices will have to go up to produce food using high oil usage style. The problem is as you say though that the price of food will get so high that it will restrict the availability to the 3rd world and thus reduce population, well maybe. We are going to 9 billion by 2045 and most of the projections are factoring in lower birth rates. That is only 34 yrs away though; I think that trend has already been baked in, now how does the world respond. A little starvation here, war there and tariffs on everything and soon we have WWIII. I don't mean to imply that Europe does not produce food, they just don't export any. I think only France is an exporter and maybe the U.K, but even that goes to other euro nations. Europe is in much worse shape in an oil starved world because they do not have the food to trade for oil. The U.S. is fairly empty and thus can produce more food than pop can use, while china, Europe and India can't meet internal demand and need to import to make up difference.
Crybaby,
If you had your way, and we needed a license to have a child, and we were forbidden to use our automobiles and all the other FOS rules and regs that you would like to impose on me were put into effect, would we have a free country? Why do you beg for oppression? Does outside control provide you with a sense of security? Do you want all of your day to day actions to be controlled and regulated? If you want all those "bad" people to stop what they are doing, and do what you want them to do, what stops them from imposing their will on you? Where do you think that path leads?
I do not think that I'm omniscient. Neither are you omniscient, yet you think you know how to run my life better than I know, myself. I certainly do not know how you run your life, your likes, dislikes, abilities or anything else. Absolutely, I cannot tell you how to run your life, but I believe that your should have the opportunity to lead your life, peacefully, any damn way you want to. The same goes for me. When someone starts to suggest that the government ought make those people over there do this, or those other people do that, my blood boils. That is the end of freedom and the path to tyranny.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Coal Guy:
I would like to live in a world which is free from addiction to fossil fuels. The human race has the technology which is necessary to provide all the energy necessary from the sun, we are just not using it. I want to live in a world where there are no abortions because people use contraception . I would like to live in a country which spends trillions of dollars on education and health care, not wars.
But if peak oil is approaching, as Greg seems to believe, then we will all be obeying a lot of rules - I wont be the one making them or enforcing them, but you wont be able to avoid it unless you leave the planet.
Crybaby,
Fossil fuels will be used up soon enough. It is unstoppable. If we stopped using them now, and left them in the ground, what good would they be to anyone? We don't need government to free us from fossil fuels. Socialist governments have invariably resorted to brutally oppressive social controls when the going gets rough. They have been more than willing to decimate their population for the common good. Make a list of the greatest mass murderers of the 20th century and then make a list of the most recognized socialist/communist/Maoist leaders of the 20th century. The two lists will be pretty much the same. This bunch of knot-heads is no different. They just haven't been pushed to desperation yet. No thank you.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Great post interesting.
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