... and the situation in the
Published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), the 2004 survey points out that a significant number of people are off track with their retirement saving ... Why aren't some Americans saving at all for retirement? Is working during retirement a viable way to make ends meet? In a culture where we are constantly told to "spend, spend, spend," is it realistic to expect that people will save for retirement?
The Friends Provident survey found most people are likely to have a suffer a shortfall of around £10,000 in their pension income compared to what they needed. On average, Britons reckoned they would need between £20,000 to £24,000 each year to maintain the lifestyle they wantd in retirement. But the amount they realistically anticipated they would get was only £10,000 to £12,000.
Why?
1] The cost spiral ... including housing:
Let alone spiralling credit debt to help pay for everything.Overdependence on home equity loans and lines of credit have economists concerned that consumers are financially over-extended and ready to cut back on spending. Too many costs are gnawing away at consumers' wallets, and while the job market has improved over the past year, wages have not kept up with the cost of living.
Middle-class America also binged on equity credit [in 2005] … equity cash paid ordinary homeowners' credit card bills, college tuition and vacation expenses, among other things, says Yacik.
The rich, however, are taking borrowed cash "and using it to leverage other investments," says George Walper, president of the Spectrem Group, a Chicago-based firm that researches the affluent.
2] It's not only spiralling costs. It's also simple envy:
"It's not the mega-rich we envy, but the people with the slightly nicer house up the road," says Simon Carr, of the Independent.
... and downunder, Adele Horin, of the Melbourne Age, reported on November 30 2002:
Australians have never been richer, says the study report by the Australia Institute. Yet the majority of middle-income households believe they are doing it tough. The report's author, institute executive director Clive Hamilton, says inflated expectations, not inadequate income, are the problem.
"A large and growing proportion of the population wants to emulate the lifestyles of the rich and famous," he says. "Because they can't afford it they constantly feel deprived of the good life."
3] Children's escalating and more expensive demands:
There's a lot more to kids' marketing today than trying to keep brands relevant, hip and cool. Today's kids want two additional things from marketers: brands that are interactive and brands that are instant.
Make no mistake. The accepted wisdom a generation ago was that one saved for retirement. Now the strategy has been all but abandoned in the grapple for a comfortable upper-middle class life and to combat spiralling costs which are being generated by both consumers and credit institutions.
And in the process, men and women have become, not their own bosses, not the parents of the classic saccharine sitcom but in reality - no more than piglets feeding on the teats of a bloated financial mother pig.
Interest rates are being artificially held down and sometime soon, maybe in 2012 or thereabouts, the financial institutions are going to precipitate the crisis, alongside the new SPP and EU initiatives.
Apply this simple test. If all your debts, mortgage, car, credit, mobile phone and others were to be called in today by the institutions - would you be in the black or would you be one of the new class of serfs?
My advice to you is to get out of any form of debt to a financial institution as soon as you practicably can. Get off the grid and live within your "real" means, even though your dollar or pound is fiat money.
Good advice. You wanna come over and be my finance manager? You'd be horrified. Carpe diem.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing is if ALL debt were recalled, how much black there would at all.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that this point was observed by the social credit movement of the thirties, but it is true more than ever, that the total debt in the world are just figures on computers. In phsical terms, the vast majority of it could not be called in, because it just isn't there.
When the crunch comes, the Great depression will seem like a lull in the economy.
On thing that is not meantioned is that the people that save instead of spending get means tested are most are not much better off after that. There are several examples of people saving for pensions but when they retire they have everything means tested and because they are above the threshhold they don't get any help. By the time everything is paid for they work out to be a few quid better off than if they had not invested for retirment at all.
ReplyDeleteOf course the people that worked this out and disn't save are relying on the welfare state.No what can it do? Let them starve? I don't think so.
"These are kids who were born using technology."
ReplyDeleteGod, how scary. Instant gratification. What's "living within your means?"
I've been lucky in that I will graduate from college next year with no student debt. But that'll change once I go to graduate school, no doubt.