[ReverseEngineer]

I was pondering last night on the problems of the automakers, a sgnificant portion of which come from the horde of retired Auto workers and their pensions. Depending on your political persuasion, you will blame the problems GM has either on incompetent management or on the unions which negotiated the retirement packages.

Regardless of these political spins, just like a CEO, even an incompetent one, expects his Golden Parachute; so also does the Auto worker who spent 30 years on a deadly boring assembly line expect his just reward for having given the better part of his life to making such a venture profitable for its investors for all those years.

Its not only the GM pensions which pose a tremendous economic burden on a company, its also on a more general level our Social Security program and the privatized retirement system of the 401Ks. In all cases these system are predicated on perpetual growth, which in a world of limited resources is impossible. The system of retirement effectively encourages an ever greater number of non-productive human beings consuming the limited resources of a given area.

Retirement in its modern form is of course a relatively new concept, if you go back to the days prior to GD1, nobody ever really "retired". You worked until you no longer were able to do any kind of job that benefitted the society, and then if you were lucky and had family who would support you, you lived a year or two more and then died. The reason you couldn't work anymore of course was that you were becoming sick with diseases that ravage the aged.

Modern medicine of course increased the lifespan here for a while, at the same time we came up with these retirement schemes that pay people out of the pot expected from perpetual growth. Well, the perpetual growth has come to an end now, and so also must retirement come to an end. A major disappointment of course for Boomer now JUST on the verge of retirement, who got to watch a generation of Oldsters play golf in Florida and cruise the country visiting grandchildren in their RVs.

The disappearance of the Retirement concept is one of the hardest adjustments our society will have to make over the next few years. GenX and GenY folks who have little opportunity and no jobs certainly will not look kindly on Boomers collecting a retirement pension from the Goobermint. Boomers with 401Ks now rendered WORTHLESS are left bitter about the fact they carefully saved and invested as they were told to do by their Financial Advisers at Citbank, who all are about to lose their jobs and won't even be available on the phone to complain to. At my job, as recently as a few months ago we had a visit from the local Citigroup agent hawking Retirement Funds to put your money into, with nice charts showing how your money grows over 30 years. Conveniently ignoring the possibility of course that perpetual growth does not go on forever.

With so many in the population either nearing or over the age of retirement right now, exactly what will happen to this segment of the population as the 401Ks disappear and Social Security goes bankrupt remains an open question. This segment of the population does have political power, and so no doubt there will be some attempt to bridge the gap between the cushy retirements of the old days with the NO retirement days ahead. Any ideas on how that problem could be negotiated would provide interesting fodder for discussion in this thread.

Reverse Engineer

[Gorm]

think argentina. The state will plunder (secure) all pensionfunds.

I also think that the state will guarantee all retierd a sum each month as a pension. A sum that they kan survive on, but not more.

[CrudeAwakening]

I think this is one of the more immediate social paradigm shifts we are going to see. As economic growth slows, the concept of a leisurely retirement, cushioned by readily available modern medicine, will come to an end. All at a time when we are likely to be witnessing massive structural unemployment as industries that are no longer viable wither, the tax base reduces, and claims for handouts increase.

People who have paid taxes all their lives and believe that a portion of their taxes were earmarked for their own retirement, will be sadly disappointed. They will be faced with the dual problems of how to keep their current job until retirement age, and how to fund themselves thereafter.

I expect to see a change in the demographic pyramid over the next thirty years, with a significant shift toward younger age groups. This runs contrary to every projection I've come across, which forecast a "steadily aging population".

[ReverseEngineer]

I expect to see a change in the demographic pyramid over the next thirty years, with a significant shift toward younger age groups. This runs contrary to every projection I've come across, which forecast a "steadily aging population".

The forecast of a steadily aging population is a lot like the forecast for a steady increase of World Population up to 9B or more. It comes from statisticians who look at a curve rising steadily upward to this point and extrapolate the curve upward a few years ahead. A reasonable enough mathematical proceedure assuming all the parameters driving the curve remain the same through the period of extrapolation, but of course its pretty obvious right now these parameters are changing rapidly. There is a discontinuity here as we approach the Zero Point in the economic equation.

Even IF births are currently exceeding deaths right now worldwide (and I do not believe this to be the case anymore), any of those being born right now in third world countries have an EXTREMELY short life expectancy. In the next 2-3 years, famine will take out many of the youngest and many of the oldest in these societies. As our own society devolves, the medicaire industry which supports the extended lifespan of the aged will crumble. As we have seen discussed in another thread, ALREADY doctors are unable to collect from Medicaire and are either leaving the profession or setting up cut rate clinics for people who will pay CASH for medical care. If a retiree has his pension cut to the bone to just provide basic food and shelter, where would he get the extra money to pay cash for even basic health care, much less a Heart Transplant?

The very oldest in our society will be the first to go here, even before the Rapists and the Child Molesters housed in the prisons. Expensive medical proceedures for the aged will simply stop as hospitals are no longer paid through medicare and doctors quit this portion of the industry. Expect here a fairly rapid die off of the population age 70 and above.

It will be interesting in a sense to see whether a reduction in the support system for the aged will provide enough surplus to bring the society back into balance for a while. While the population over age 70 represents probably less than 10% of the population as a whole, in terms of resources and lack of productivity they consume much more than that. If you postulate a 20% savings by offing everyone over age 70 or so, this could in theory keep the system solvent a while longer.

Reverse Engineer

[Southpaw]

I agree with you that retirement, and all other social systems will crumble.

Personally i don't mind to die at the age of 70 right at the moment i would be happy if i survive the coming 20 years.

[RapaNui]

GM misery produced not by Management or Unions or Intersection thereof. Produced, clearly, by peak oil. Unavoidable, unless, you seez, you can change h.s. biology. Which, you seez, you cannot. Soz, problem too much cheap oil, human biology. Time for Rapa Math:
Human Bio + Cheapy Cheap oil = obesity, heart disease, overpaid workers, low quality cars.
Manage and Union, same problem. Cars, same symptom.
Retirement born of cheapy cheap oil, die with cheapy cheap oil.

Per COC: "2.1.5 Add content responsibly. Posts should include these attributes: correct spelling and grammar, as well as appropriate formatting. Threads should be started judiciously, and include correct and informative titles. Creation of a large number of poorly executed threads is regarded as disruptive of the community. "-FL

[Sys1]

This thread really hurts. I think to my parents who will be stucked between bankrupt of retirement and riots in the streets while getting older. My mother has a pacemaker and take medicines everyday. Same for my father... Even my wife need medicines every day (epilepsy) in order to survive, she worries about her shop where people buy less and less. My brother can't get a job... I feel like the only one in good shape and still young even if my mind is upside down thanks to PO.
My parents are quite rich, at least regarding the horde of jobless young people of their neighbourhood. Their house could be easily looted as violence hits more and more the city where they live.

On TV, our brillant politicians are speaking about a 70 years old "option" for retirement for one month, pretexting we are living longer and that people love to work instead of living a boring life where they do nothing. After the interview, the journalist turns the head towards camera with a smile, saying something like it's ok to work for nothing until death, and I swear you I see him laughing in his dead brain.

Damn... I hope those politics, pseudo-journalists and growth's economists will be hanged on place by the angry crowd.
It won't solve peak oil but at least it will be the good die off.

[ReverseEngineer]

My parents are both nearing 70, both retired and getting lots of medical assisatance from Medacare / Medicaid. My mother is on oxygen pretty much 24/7, and who pays for all the oxygen? My father has his little weekly pillbox for blood pressure and heart problems from two heart attacks. I know that should their assistance end, they will not make it a year.

I am just glad that at 47 I do not take anything but a one-a-day vitamin. I do not want to end up being a slave to medicine, and really have no desire to live beyond the point when I have to start wearing diapers again, yuck!

So that gun will serve two purposes, defense when needed, and ending it all when I can no longer control my bodily functions.

My sentiments exactly.

I am 51, and have not visited a doctor in 30 years for any malady other than a sebaceous cyst I could have lanced myself ( I have med insurance, so the insurance paid for a 10 minute visit to a Plastic Surgeon which was billed out at around $700). Otherwise to date I am pretty healthy, slightly high blood pressure (especially when certain people here on Peak Oil tick me off, lol) but I don't bother treating it with medication.

My dad had a quadruple bypass in his late 50s, so I figure my ticker probably is gonna quit in another 5 years or so. This should get me to 2012, to see how the Mayan Calendar plays itself out. After the QBP, my dad lived to age 80, for the last decade with Emphysema on Oxygen every night. Fortunately well cared for by his 3rd wife, around 15 years his junior. Died last year.

My mom is still alive, now age 80 also, after first a colon cancer surgery and then a liver cancer surgery a couple of years after that. She is mostly housebound, all her friends are dead.

I'm sorry, I really cannot see the purpose in extending life in this way. I actually feel these days as though I ALREADY lived long enough, I have passed on my knowledge to not only the children, but to younger teachers also who pursue many of the methods I developed. 5 more years would be a great bonus, but I sure am not going to do it with expensive medical proceedures, even though I AM insured. What a freaking waste.

You are born, you live and then you die. You don't have forever to walk the earth, and its plain selfish to continue consuming resources after you no longer are productive. When that time comes, I will give myself up to the Bear. That is all she wrote.

Reverse Engineer

[JJ]

q: who wants to live to be 80?
a: someone 79

[Blacksmith]

I've already worked two years passed retirement and will continue to work at a somewhat reduced level for at least two more years. I am as far as I can tell in good health and God willing will continue so. I have always been bothered by the concept of retirement at 65 and waiting till then to enjoy yourself.

Enjoy yourself now, whatever your age. Live every day as if it was your last and God bless you all.

[kpeavey]

Where a pension or retirement plan is not available, the old rely on their offspring for support in the winter of their years.

Seems to me the young will adapt, the old will complete their lifecycle, leaving those people currently 25-45 to serve as the Transition Generation.

How will GenerationX respond to a failed economy and joblessness, a bank foreclosing on their homes, crushing credit card debt, a collapsing energy infrastructure, dependent children and dependent baby boomer parents?

[Pops]

I guess "retirement" will be what it once was:

Gram teaching what she knows and Pops sitting around pontificating...

[shortonoil]

Along with other aberrant behaviors that began with the oil age, and will end with the oil age, retirement is something that I have long regarded as someone else's fantasy. A golden parachute will soon be exactly what it implies. Not something that one would want to rely upon - anymore than a drowning man would look to rely upon an anvil!

[Chuckmak]

retirement? what's that?

[lawnchair]

The obvious problem is that population will be peaking. This can be taken in horror, or in inevitable acceptance (note my tagline, I fall in the latter camp).

Now we in the West may be into our most serious economic crisis in the contraceptive era. I'm going to be very curious if this leads to more or fewer births (my guess is it will depend on socioeconomic status). But, crisis or not, there will not be ever larger numbers of 20-30 somethings to support the aged. This is a problem under the current system.

On the flip side of that, there isn't enough that *needs* to be done, to keep people fed, housed, and reasonably healthy (assuming standards are set a little lower than American).

Meanwhile, we're encouraging lots of 65-plus people to keep working. Which is fine and all, but they're clogging up the system. I have an uncle who is 56. He's got enough saved that he'd walk away from the system, tomorrow, buy a cabin in nowhere, and be a ski-bum for the rest of his days. This would free up a job and would move someone out of the crowded Northeast who doesn't particularly want to be there. Except, of course, health insurance.

My solution is to encourage a lower standard of living, encourage less intensive old-age medicine (probably via socializing med, sorry, the alternative failed), and, overall, encourage a workweek more like 30 hours.

[cube]

I guess "retirement" will be what it once was:

Gram teaching what she knows and Pops sitting around pontificating...

Totally disagree.

In pre-industrialized times EVERYBODY worked: male, female, young, and old. Granted an old person cannot be expected to put in a full day's worth of hard labor, but there's plenty of light work that can be done part time like basket weaving, babysitting the kids, sewing, etc...
Back in the old days if you had 2 arms you did work.
The concept of "unemployment" is actually a modern invention.
//
here's the cube scenario:
ALL the day care centers will shut down because seriously who can afford to pay the $1,000 a month fee in this economy?
After the stock market crashes by 80% and takes your parents 401K retirement plan with it, they'll move back into your house to babysit the kids because they couldn't afford to live on their own.

[Heineken]

Dieoff should take care of a good part of the retirement problem.

So will .38-caliber-type retirements.

A major reason I retired early (at age 50) is because I don't expect it to last.

[ReverseEngineer]

Dieoff should take care of a good part of the retirement problem. So will .38-caliber-type retirements.
A major reason I retired early (at age 50) is because I don't expect it to last.

Watch out for that Fatalism Bug, Heineken. It can bite you in the a$$ just when you least expect it

Anyhow, I took the opposite tactic. I'm nearly precisely the same age as you, I hope NEVER to retire, until I drop dead anyhow. I love my work, and its even good post-crash work at least so long as there is enough food around anyhow. SOMEBODY has to teach children to be good citizens, or at least good Hunters and Fishermen

My main goal here is to make sure *I* die off before they do. Save As Many as You Can.

Reverse Engineer

[Heineken]

Watch out for that Fatalism Bug, Heineken. It can bite you in the a$$ just when you least expect it Anyhow, I took the opposite tactic. I'm nearly precisely the same age as you, I hope NEVER to retire, until I drop dead anyhow. I love my work, and its even good post-crash work at least so long as there is enough food around anyhow. SOMEBODY has to teach children to be good citizens, or at least good Hunters and Fishermen My main goal here is to make sure *I* die off before they do. Save As Many as You Can.

Who sez I don't work, RE? Harder than ever. Just replaced one boss with another---me.

[perdition79]

How will GenerationX respond to a failed economy and joblessness, a bank foreclosing on their homes, crushing credit card debt, a collapsing energy infrastructure, dependent children and dependent baby boomer parents?

I'm in that age bracket, I "gave up" years ago and have never been happier. With the right encouragement, the rest of my peers will realize the futility of their lifestyles, get mad as hell, give up on servicing the "death and taxes" culture and start actually living.