This morning, I flipped the channel to Bloomburg news just in time to hear the CEO of something drop the final sentence in an interview. He pointed out that we are cutting benefits to the elderly, I don’t know whether he meant private companies or the government, but both are on the chopping block. What that means is that everyone is going to have to save more money to prepare for getting older. In an economy that is driven by consumer spending, that means recovery will be much slower.
From another source, I learned that the average American has $52, 000 in retirement savings. Assuming that you are average, how long is that going to support you? Better spend less and sock away more.
And, how long will that savings have to last you? The BBC reports that the a baby boy born in Britain today has a one-in-four chance of living to be 100. A girl has a one-in-three chance. Of course we Americans don’t have so much to worry about. The average American male will live 1.5 years less than the average Briton. Canadians, Australians, and Japanese outlive us by even more. And, the gap is growing.
If I may, I will quote from the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14070090
"We weren't surprised that we had lower life expectancies than other countries, but we were surprised by the fact that we were falling further behind," says Dr Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
…But the US is a big country, and while parts of Mississippi have a male life expectancy of 67, behind nations like the Philippines, women in areas of Florida live as long, on average, as the Japanese, who top the longevity rankings.
It is precisely this kind of inequality that goes some way to explain why the US - and the UK to a lesser degree - lag behind other countries, according to Danny Dorling, a professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield in the UK.
He believes a more even distribution of wealth, even if the average were lower, could mean longer lives for everyone.
Meanwhile: Elderly Americans have a higher chance of surviving heart disease and many cancers than their counterparts in other rich countries, she says. Where the US lags behind is what happens at a much younger age.
That brings us back to being able to pay for longivity. Those who want to be able to afford to grow old will not be spending the money necessary to provide jobs for the rest. Funded pension plans are going the way of the dinosaur. Social Security was never intended to support people in their old age. It is a supplement, and one that conservatives want to reduce. Meanwhile, putting our money in stocks and mutual funds seems to be riskier every day—unless you happen to manage stocks and mutual funds.
Isn’t freedom great? Slogans beat soup any day.
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